Girls and Boys of Summer
by Joshua The Evil Guy
Summary: Sequel to Immortal Summers of Sunnydale. Three weeks after those events, Amy's uncle is visiting and he brings Buffy some disturbing news that will change everyone's lives...forever. Character Death. CX WO BF BW Really Updated!
1. What was it they said about redheads?

The Girls (and Boys) of Summer

Sequel to Immortal Summers

Disclaimer:             Concept of Immortals belong to Rysher Entertainment and creators of the Highlander movies and TV show.  Buffy: the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions.  This is an original piece of fiction based on the merging of these two "universes".  Similarity to other fics, specifically Akraen's "The Immortal Life of Elisabeth Summers", has been acknowledged and in general accepted by the various fellow authors.  Spoilers for mostly Buffy episodes of the third season or prior.

**Chapter 1:**

Buffy was at home that Saturday morning, taking care of several business things, and helping her mom clean out the Gallery by dragging a shitload of old paintings and the like so she could properly appraise them.  Actually, Buffy was the one doing the appraising, Joyce was just jotting down the notes of comments Buffy was muttering as she looked them over and based more on that than the appearance, attaching a price tag to it.

Another part of the business things was taking care of their taxes for this last year.  Not fun, and something she usually left to Joyce, her mother being the better business woman in all of their opinions, but today there was just so much to do and at the same time so little to do.  So while Joyce was reorganizing her entire Gallery because she had to, Buffy was doing the taxes because she was bored out of her immortal skull.

Lucky for her, the boredom was not to last.  Just as she had _finally_ finished with the last of their "legal" returns and put them away in the folder, Buffy tensed as a dreaded familiar sensation crept up her back and resonated energy inside her mind.  She locked down the energy and focused on it.  A trick she had picked up with Joy, and the added bonus of Greek god empowered psychic abilities, was to identify individual immortals from their "radar" blip.  Instantly, Buffy was alert and ready to kill or at the last resort, run.  The Immortal that was approaching her home was neither Joy nor Faith.

She grabbed her personal-made katana that she hid even from her friends and walked cautiously to the door.  It wouldn't be the first time that Immortals had cheated, killing their opponent so they wouldn't have to fight.  Not even Buffy, as old and experienced and as powerful as she was, was invulnerable to bullets.

However, just before she reached for the doorknob, the Immortal entered "normal" range and Buffy got an instant bead on who was walking up her sidewalk.  Normally she kept her range on extra sensitive, allowing her to detect Immortals nearly twice, if not three times the distance that the other Immortals could sense her.

Buffy couldn't stop the smile that spread to her face if she wanted to as the identity of the unknown Immortal was confirmed.  She hid her katana faster than thought and threw open the door.

The man at the end of the sidewalk halted his progress when he saw the door being opened, and he too couldn't stop the smile spreading to his face as he saw the youthful girl approach him.

"Oh my god, oh my god, Ohmigod, Ohmigod, Ohmigod, Omigawd, omigawd, OHMIGAWD!!" Buffy squealed like the teenager she looked to be as she ran forward until she reached the end of the porch, and then in an unnecessary display of her preternatural strength, she leapt the remaining ten feet from the porch to the man, easily landing herself on him.  Lucky for him, he was strong enough to catch her, as she instantly wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and started kissing both of his cheeks.

"Omigawd!  _John_!!  What are you doing here?  _When_ did you get here?  Amy told us that you wouldn't be arriving until tomorrow evening!  Omigawd, Faith is going to be so jazzed to see you!  I can't believe your here!  What are you doing here?" Buffy squealed once more and easily held herself to John, perhaps squeezing a bit too hard, but she really didn't notice through her excitement.

John Madison smiled affectionately at his old friend.  "Well, that's kind of a long story that would be easier to tell if I could breathe.   Would you mind getting down Beth?  And where is Faith anyway?"

Buffy just kissed John one more time on the forehead and moved her hands from his neck to his shoulders.  "Call me Buffy.  And I have no idea where Faith is right now," Buffy said as she finally let go of the blonde blue-eyed hunk.  "Why?  Are you here to win her back after all these years Mr. Smith?"

"No, I'm not.  In fact I am a very happily married man, I'll have you know.  Anyway, I thought you'd have grown at least some in the thirty years that I've seen you.  What's the matter kid, not eating your veggies?" John teased.

Buffy just smiled up at the former English pirate.  He was only a head taller than her, Xander was taller, and it was a running joke that Buffy was stuck at five foot two, and that John was a ladies man.

"Yes, I've been eating my vegetables," Buffy said tolerantly, as she suddenly took John's hand and flipped him over her back so that he landed quite painfully on his.  "By the way, where's the woman that finally tamed you sailor?"

"That would be me," Buffy heard a sharp voice come from behind her.

Buffy turned around and looked at the intimidating witch that had spoken.  She was about five and a half feet tall, only a few inches taller than Buffy, had neck-length cropped dark auburn hair, had a darker than normal complexion, making her look more exotic than she probably was, and wore simple cut-off denims, a white tank top with a sky blue denim shirt over it, tied with a knot at her waist, and the sleeves rolled up.  Her hands were splayed on her hips, her stance was more tense than aggressive, but her face shown her anger far more easily than any of her other features.

Buffy barely batted an eye at this woman as they studied each other.  Buffy wasn't impressed.

Looking down at her friend, she asked, "Alison?"

Trying very hard not to break out laughing, John nodded as he struggled to his feet and confirmed in as straight a voice he could manage, "Alison."

He turned back to the exotic redhead and held out his arm, which she readily slipped into, as he introduced, "Honey, I would like you to meet one of my oldest friends.  Beth Slayton."

"So this isn't the infamous Faith I've heard so much about from Amy?" Alison inquired as she continued to eye Buffy like a lion looking at the herd.

"Sorry, no," Buffy answered in as pleasant a voice she could manage while being insulted (not very).  "And John, you know that I switched my names a long time ago.  You can call me Buffy Summers.  By the way, Mom should be back shortly.  She was just picking up the last of the paintings while I finished up the taxes for this season," Buffy explained as she led the couple into her home of the past three years.

"_Mom_?" both John and Alison asked, completely disbelieving what they had just heard with their own ears.

Buffy didn't even try to stop the girlish giggle that rose in her throat.  "Yes _Mom_," she responded.  "You do remember me telling you about Joy?  In appearance, she's twenty years older than I am.  Besides, she likes playing Mother Goose every few decades."

John and Alison stared in further disbelief as Buffy cleaned up the kitchen table, which had receipts and other monetary documents spread out all over it.  "Uh, no…Buffy," John worked his way out of his stupor.  "I remember Joy, and that's not what surprised me.  It's just…you doing taxes.  I figured you would have had _Joy_ doing them.  You always did say she was better with the numbers."

Buffy just shrugged as she put the last of the papers away, the table clean.  "What can I say, I was bored.  It's been really slow ever since I told Amy and our friends about me," Buffy told them.

Alison tensed and John could tell she was either about to run screaming out of the house, or turn his friend into something neither of them wanted to think about.  So he just tightened his arm around her.  "You…told Amy about…you?" John hesitantly asked.

Buffy just nodded, still looking bored as ever, but inside she was still cheering and shouting for joy.  "_Everything_…I mean, um everything?" Alison squeaked and then repeated in a deeper voice.

Buffy just nodded at the couple.  Then her head turned to the right at something neither of the two could detect, until about thirty seconds later, when Buffy grinned and John felt the 'Buzz' in his brain.  "Mom's home," Buffy called as though a teenager.

Just before Buffy disappeared out the front door, she turned to the couple and asked seriously, "Hey, you two got any luggage you need unpacked?"

John, startled a little at Buffy's carefree attitude with a nearby Immortal, whether or not if it really was Joy, stuttered in answering, "Uhm, uh no thanks…Buffy.  We're actually staying with Amy's father for the week.  He already approved according to Amy."

Buffy just nodded and headed out the door, presumably to meet Joy.

"Well that was certainly strange," Alison commented to her husband.  "She's nothing like you described.  If anything, this "_First Slayer_" is just a teenager herself.  Are you sure she's the same Immortal that you knew back in the sixties?  Because she certainly doesn't seem that way to me."

John rolled his eyes in frustration.  "Yes, Ally, I'm _very_ sure.  It is the same girl.  And I think you're forgetting something here.  Bet…_Buffy_ is trapped in the body _of_ a _teenager_.  In this day and age you have to act how you look.  Sometimes you can look older, others younger, but more often than not, if you died at the age of fifteen, you have to act like fifteen year olds of the era.  And don't start on me about the whole lying thing.  We've covered that."

Alison 'Humphed' and crossed her arms.  "What else bothers me is that she would involve ordinary teenagers in _Immortal_ business.  When Amy called last week, she never mentioned knowing anything about this Immortal.  When she asked for you, what did she say?" Alison interrogated.

John gave his wife a humoring and gentle smile, with just a touch of smugness.  "That, my dearest, is none of your damn business.  Now lets go see if Buffy is okay.  You can never be too careful with other Immortals," John said.

Just as John and his wife reached the porch, Alison still pouting at not knowing anything and still not trusting Buffy after the way she had greeted _her_ husband, Buffy and Joy stepped onto the porch and without a word, went past them into the house.  Buffy came back, still holding her bundle, and said, "Hey you two, grab a painting.  But be careful, they're antiques."

Alison turned wide-eyed on John.  "And _you_ never said anything about physical labor," she snapped under her breath.

John rolled his eyes again.  "Oh get down off your high horse Ally!" John snapped back.  "I know you're uncomfortable being on the Hellmouth and all, but can you at the absolute _least_ possibility, _try_ to be courteous?"

When John began to look at her with those baby blues of his, his lip sticking out like a little puppy dog, Alison knew she'd been had, but she just couldn't raise the necessary anger to be mad at her husband when he was that adorably cute.  Groaning, Alison joined him at the car and muttered, "_Fine_.  You win.  I will…try and be as courteous as a Lady should be.  Just don't expect an award winning performance."

"Just be nice.  That's all I'm asking," John responded.

With the four people unloading the car, Buffy showing the other two where to place the antiques while Joy went to get more, they were finished in a record time of five minutes.  Once they had completed and Joy had parked the Jeep, Buffy gathered them in the living room for proper introductions.

"Mom," Buffy said, getting her "mother's" attention, who was just wearing comfortable jeans and white T-shirt, "This is John Madison, and his wife, Alison Madison.  They showed up early."

"I figured as much," Joy nodded sagely.  Alison blinked in surprise.  Joy cocked her head to the side and asked, "Is something wrong Alison?"

"Uhm, no, it…its just that you remind me of my sister," Alison answered after a moment.

"Hopefully not Catherine," Buffy muttered.

"Buffy!" Joy snapped.  Alison glared hard at her, daring her to make one wrong move.

Buffy, more chastened by Joy's tone than Alison's glare, shrugged her shoulders and said defensively, "Hey!  She tried to blast me into some other dimension, _after_ trying to kill me with a make-me-drunk-influenza spell.  I have a right to resentment, OK?"

Alison immediately lowered her eyes.  John put a comforting hand on her shoulder, offering his support, both as a husband and a friend.  Buffy saw how Alison felt about her sister that had turned to the "Dark side" as a way of saying it.  She immediately felt regret and tried to apologize.

"Alison…I'm sorry.  I didn't meant to…" Buffy started.

Alison interrupted, "No, it's okay.  You _do_ have a right.  I just wish there was something I could have done about it, is all.  And I was referring to my _older_ sister Buffy.  Catherine was the youngest.  Joan…my older sister is very…well I guess the best term is _Zen_ witch."

Buffy immediately started giggling again, while Joy herself held a humorous smile.

Alison was surprised by their reaction.  "Is something supposed to be _funny_ here?" she asked with a bite to her tone.

Buffy finished her giggle fit and shook her head, shaking the last of the funnies from her.  "Sorry.  It's just…I don't think I've ever heard Mom described quite like that.  Think of her more as a mother hen, and you'll be a bit more on target Alison.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll call the others and we can introduce the whole gang."

"Actually…Buffy," (it was clear that John was having some minor trouble in handling Buffy's "new" name) John halted her.  "There are some things that I need to discuss with you.  That's why we came here before going to Amy's house."

"And?" Buffy waited with a carefree look.

John decided it was probably best to just blurt it out, knowing Beth…er, Buffy.  "Remember back in the sixties, that…project that we were working on together?"

Buffy's face scrunched in minor confusion.  "Which one?" she asked in all honesty.

John's face became unreadable as he said just one word.  "Nightwatch."

Buffy's face fell into the realm of unread soon after.  She stepped closer to John and whispered, dead serious, "When was it activated?"

Now John's face was confused.  "It wasn't.  Nightwatch has been canceled."

Buffy's face, where he expected confusion and at most total acceptance at least, was leaning more towards outright terror.  "Are-are…are you sure?  I mean, John are you absolutely, 100% dead-on sure about this?  John, this is _very, very_ important.  Are you absolutely _sure_ that Nightwatch has been canceled?  As in _CANCELED?!_"

John just nodded, not understanding Buffy's vehemence.  Buffy closed her eyes and seemed to be doing nothing but breathing.  After thirty or more seconds, Buffy opened her eyes, and in them was sad acceptance.  She nodded her head.  "Thanks for telling me John.  I appreciate it," she told him in a dead voice.

"Don't you want…?" John started to ask, but Buffy interrupted him.

"No thanks, I already have them," Buffy cryptically answered as she walked into the kitchen, where the phone was.

"What was that all about?" Alison asked John when Buffy had left the room.

"You don't want to know," both John and Joy answered at the same time.

Several minutes of silence later, Buffy returned and informed them, "Willow and Xander are on their way over with Oz.  Cordelia said she couldn't make it, and Amy asked me what you two were doing here so early…and here rather than at her house?"  Buffy gave a meaningful glare in John's direction.

Looking a bit uncomfortable, John just shrugged and tried to start laughing, but ended up trailing off sheepishly, looking like a fool.  Alison too looked like she had something to hide.

"So," Buffy tried to start a conversation, "Ally, is it?"

Alison looked up and at the blonde.  "Yes.  Alison McGregor Madison.  Fire/water practicing witch of the Madison Clan.  And you would be?  Specifically that is."

Buffy looked surprised.  "You mean John hasn't spoken of me?  I'm shocked.  Look John, this is me, shocked!" Buffy pointed at her face, which did look shocked.  Then she broke out in giggles.

John grimaced a little and interrupted the laughing fit the Summers women seemed to have found themselves in.  "Buffy, this really isn't the time for laughs," he muttered.

Buffy and Joyce gained control of themselves and Buffy looked seriously back at Alison, who despite having an annoyed twitch in her eye, was still waiting for her answer.  "I have had many names in my lifetime Ally, far more than I care to go over in a single minute, not that I could in a single minute.  More like thirty to forty-five, but to say the least Ally I am who John has told you I am.  I also don't like to talk about my age, if you know what I mean." Buffy whispered the last with a slight giggle.

Alison glared hard at the blonde.  "Oh yes, I understand perfectly.  You're an Immortal, probably at most only two hundred years old that probably died whoring just to survive.  And since you seem to have perfected that innocent schoolgirl act, I'd say that you probably died your first time with a man.  What happened to your first Teacher?  If he was killed you probably let it happen.  But no one could blame you.  After all, you're still just a little—" Alison never finished.

Buffy's face as Alison continued to speak just kept getting darker and darker, until a single tear rolled down her cheek when she mentioned Buffy's Teacher.  The moment that Alison said the word "little" Buffy reacted.

Moving faster than she thought it possible for a human to move, Alison only saw a blur and then felt her feet leave the ground as Buffy's hand lifted her by her throat.  The look she saw in the blonde's eyes terrified her more than any of the monsters that she had fought as a witch.  If the actions of murder, slaughter, and genocide could ever be given an emotional status, the look in Buffy's eyes was how it would be expressed.

"You know, John," Buffy said in a deceptively calm voice, "When you and Amy described Ally here, I was expecting someone a lot like myself.  Confident, open, friendly and maybe even polite in the modern sense of the word.  Instead, I find an arrogant green-eye clouded amateur whose mouth bites off more than God could chew."

"Buffy, please, calm down," John begged seeing how Alison's jealousy of his past relationship with Buffy's student had gotten _way_ out of hand.  "Buffy, you're choking her.  She's sorry.  Now probably more than ever.  Alison, tell her you're sorry!"

Buffy's eyes gleamed.  "It's a bit late for that John.  Did I ever tell you how I died?  Or what happened to my First Teacher John?  Funny tale.  I was raped by some Chief I had been married to against my will.  I almost killed the bastard myself before he even laid a hand on me.  But in the end he…_consummated_ the marriage."  Buffy spat out the word with a sneer.  "Alaekiam, my teacher, was killed before my eyes by Kronos.  I was busy killing a demon of the 1st circle, so I'm sorry to say that all I could do was leave the son of a bitch with a scar that he'd never forget and trapped him in that valley for at least fifty years.  Yeah that's right _Ally_, I'm _that_ old!"

Buffy sneered once more and dropped the Madison witch.  "If it wasn't for John, I would have killed you before the first words left your mouth, _witch_.  Keep that in mind.  Any more inquisitions you'd like to make, _Ally_?"

Alison decided that it was wisest to stay silent.

Buffy, satisfied snorted and turned and went past the dining room and into the kitchen.  Joyce remained behind in order to introduce herself and to excuse Buffy's behavior to the couple.

"It's very nice to finally meet you John," Joyce stepped forward and shook the blonde man's hand.  "I've heard many things about you.  And before you ask, equally good and bad.  Hello Alison, Blessed Be."

Alison nodded back to the Mother Witch and greeted likewise, "Blessed Be.  Look I'm sorry what I said, I never meant…" Alison trailed off as Joyce waved her argument away.

"Don't worry about it dear, it happens more often than you think.  We don't worry about it anymore," Joyce explained.  "Buffy, while she may look and often act young, is not a person that you want to trifle with.  She's the oldest of us, and the wisest.  She deserves a great deal of respect, even from a Madison."

With that said, Joyce turned around and went into the kitchen to see to Buffy.  Alison turned to her husband and couldn't hide the fact from her face that she felt lower than buried shit.  John just chuckled and sighed at the irony when he saw her face and just held her to him and patted her shoulder, as though saying, 'There, there,' and rather patronizingly.

In the kitchen, Joy walked in just as Buffy was throwing away the tissues she had used to dry her recent tears.  Silently, the Immortal mother came up behind her and just stood there, waiting.  She didn't have to wait long before Buffy turned and reached for her.  Joy easily accepted Buffy into her embrace and cooed soothingly as the Immortal girl cried her fresh tears.  She wasn't about to blame what had happened in the living room on Buffy, but she knew that Buffy needed her for this moment, and she would be that for her teacher.

After a few minutes, Joy looked down at the blonde head and asked softly, "Buffy?  Honey?  Are you going to be ok?"

Sniffling, Buffy stood a little straighter and looked up at the woman holding her.  "Thank you Joy…I don't know how I could have made it through the centuries without you.  You've done so much…helped me so much.  Thank you."

Smiling warmly, Joy reached up and calmly stroked back Buffy's golden locks.  "It was a mutual helping Buffy.  I never would have survived without you.  All that I've done to help is the least that I could do.  I'm glad to have known you Buffy Summers.  Or whatever you call yourself."

The Summers women broke out in another giggle fit and Buffy released herself from the cradle hold Joy held her in and dried her tears once again.  At that moment, both Buffy and Joy felt an electric sensation crawl up their spines and release a hornets nest of energy at the base of their skulls.  "Faith," both women groaned as Buffy went out to the living room to handle damage control and Joy went to warn Faith of what was happening.  Just before leaving though, Joy added a glamour to Buffy's face to hide that she had been crying.

Buffy went straight into the living room, where John was just catching Faith's "buzz" on normal range.  Joyce went straight for the door and opened it and then stepped outside to delay the Immortal Slayer for as long as possible.

"Buffy…?" John started, wondering why she was sending Joy to meet the Immortal rather than go herself.  As though reading his mind, Buffy just nodded and interrupted him.

"I know John.  Look, don't worry, its Faith first of all, and second, Joy is at the least 1200 years old, more than old enough to take care of herself, I assure you." Buffy interrupted.

Alison instantly latched onto the anger that caused her to lash out at Buffy before.  John had hinted that he'd had a relationship with the Immortal called Faith, though he had refused to give any details.  When he'd told her that Faith was actually here in the same town as her niece, the green-eyed demon of jealousy instantly reared its ugly head as Alison began to entertain thoughts of this "Faith" stealing _her_ man away from her.  Even despite John's assurances that whatever relationship the two Immortals had had was long over, that he was in love with her now and only wanted to be with _her_, Alison still couldn't help herself.

On the porch, Faith wasn't the only one arriving.  Oz's van had just pulled in beside Joyce's Jeep and surprisingly Faith was climbing out with the other Scoobies, save Cordelia and Giles.  Joyce grimaced of what their reaction was going to be once they met both John and Alison.

"Hey Joyce!" Faith greeted with a shout as she bounded for the porch.  "Waz up?" Faith imitated the street slang with a grin.

"Hi Joy!" Willow bubbled, her arm around Oz's waist and likewise with the werewolf.  Xander smiled warmly up at the older (in more than just one sense of the word) blonde and nodded his head as all the teenage (looking) people stepped onto the porch.

"Actually, something is rather up at the moment Faith," Joyce began with some trepidation.  "John is visiting.  And he's brought some additional company.  Alison."

Faith's face fell through the earth.  "Oh shit," she cursed.

"Is something wrong Faith?" Willow asked with concern.  The Immortal Slayer was too caught up in looking panicky and pale to reply.  So Willow turned to Ms. Summers and repeated the question with her eyes.  Then she registered Joyce's words.

"This wouldn't happen to be the same John from your story would it?" Willow asked with a degree of excitement.  She was going to actually get to meet a historical figure.  A _very_ famous historical figure.  

Joyce, again, hesitantly answered, "Yes it would Willow, but…"

Xander interrupted saying, "And this would not _also_ happen to be the same John that is Amy's uncle and married to Amy's aunt?"

Joyce smiled at the boy's perceptiveness and continued where he left off.  "Amy's aunt who happens to be a jealousy-prone redhead of Irish and Scottish decent and a practicing witch of a well-known and powerful witch clan."

"Oh," Willow whispered as she got the message.  Then her mind recalled the three-week-old information that she had left over from Buffy's transfer of memories to her mind.  Her magically altered memory quickly recovered the information about John and Faith's relationship, as well as Buffy's witnessing of several witches that let their emotions, such as jealousy, cloud their minds and actions.  "Oh shit," she cursed after she had processed the information.

With that, both she, Faith, and Oz because he was everything _but_ surgically attached to Willow turned around and started walking off the porch.  "And where do you think you're going?" Joyce asked in a motherly tone.

Looking guilty, Faith and Willow stopped in their tracks and turned to face the Immortal Mother.  And then looked down at the ground and climbed back up the porch steps, looking like chastened children.  "Don't worry Faith," Joyce said gently as she rubbed the brunette's shoulders in a supporting manner, "We're all here, and Buffy's already threatened to kill Alison once, so if she tries anything with you, I'm sure that Buffy will at least let you get to her."

Faith snickered at the joke and nodded her head, admittedly feeling better.  "Thanks Joyce," Faith said with gratitude as she reached for the doorknob.

"Wait, what did she say that would make Buffy want to kill her…?" Willow asked as Faith and Joyce stepped inside.

*                       *                       *

Buffy was just calming John down, who being who he was didn't need that much in calming, just guarantees that his wife would still be alive and that Buffy would hold no ill regards for any of the stupid things that Alison would no doubt say.  To which the redhead witch replied with a loud objection, "HEY!!"

"Well don't blame me," John defended, "You always manage to put your foot in your mouth that gets you into even bigger trouble than you were in, in the first place Ally!  And don't even try and deny it!"

Alison was left looking flustered for several moments, before she was finally force to concede the point and just looked down at the ground, ashamed.

"Don't worry about Faith Alison," Buffy told her, realizing that part of the reason that Alison had baited her so much was that she believed John was the only one who could call her "Ally" and knew that the witch truly felt guilty about the things she said.  Unfortunately, what Joy had said was also true, it happened often enough that Buffy had learned to not let the small things, like people's ignorance of her history that she'd much rather forget, bother her.  "I can assure you that she'll be on her most polite behavior.  And you'll like the rest of the kids.  They're all nice and I'm sure they'll like you right away."

Suddenly, they all became aware of a commotion behind Buffy in the front foyer when they heard a feminine shout, "SHE SAID **WHAT?!?**"  A bit of silence, that only Buffy's advanced hearing could hear the whispers to the shouted comment.  In the next instant, even Buffy didn't know what happened.

One second she was trying to hear what was being whispered, the next, she saw a flash of red in green and in that same second they all heard the sound of a skin-tearing slap.

Alison staggered from the slap the bright auburn haired teenager hit her with.  Then she heard, with as much venom as Buffy's eyes minutes ago had held, the word, "Bitch!" and when she tried to stand to return the challenge, the teenage girl threw a left that knocked Alison back on her ass, _hard_.

Before Willow could throw herself on top of the insulting witch, Buffy grabbed her and held her back.  Or tried to anyway.  Willow was more furious than anything _anybody_ could ever remember seeing her.  She was trying to squirm, with moderating success, out of Buffy's grasp to get another hit on Alison.  John quickly tried to get to his wife, but a well timed struggling kick from Willow hit him in the eye, knocking him back with enough force to leave Alison where she lay for the moment.

"Faith!  I could use a little help here!" Buffy shouted as Willow almost got free of her again.

Faith quickly leaped forward and held Willow on the other side of Buffy, but even with the two Immortal Slayers holding her, Willow still gave them a struggle and almost got away several more times, leaping ahead with surprising strength, barely being pulled back by the two warriors enhanced strength.

"You bitch!!" Willow screamed again.  "How dare you!  How dare you say those things about Buffy!  _TO_ Buffy!  I'm going to kill you, you _bitch!_  Ahhhh!  I'm going to kill you!!"  Willow leapt forward, almost getting to the petrified witch on the floor, but the two Slayers, barely managing, _just_ held her and pulled her back.

_'Oh shit!'_ both Buffy and Faith thought at the same moment that Willow almost escaped them.

Joyce was thinking along the same lines, but thought, _'By the Goddess!  There really is more to that girl than meets the eye, isn't there?'_

At that moment, still struggling against the two Slayers, Willow's eyes turned solid black and she began to say in a dark and if possible even more ominous voice, _"Soilshey na luach, greiney nell lua—"_ before Buffy managed to gag her friend with her hand and with that added leverage, and with Faith holding the petite girl's limbs, managed to drag her back several steps further.

"Will?  Willow, you've got to calm down!" Buffy told her friend.  "Come on Red!  Calm down.  Believe me, you don't want to go down that road," Faith added her part.

Finally, after another minute, Willow seemed to have calmed down, or her eyes had turned back to normal and her struggles had more or less ceased, but she was still tense and glaring literal "murder" at the Madison witch.

"Are you okay now Will?" Buffy asked, easing her grip and gently rubbing the girls back in a calming manor.  Tensely, and never taking her glare of the witch, Willow nodded.

Everyone in the room took a sigh of relief and Buffy turned to Faith.

Faith, take her into the kitchen.  Keep her calm.  I'll be in there in a few minutes to explain things to her.  After I explain things in here that is. Buffy telepathically outlined to the Immortal Slayer.

Faith just nodded and took the willing redhead by both arms and directed her into the kitchen.  "Come on Red, it's gonna be okay.  I'll make ya somethin' ta calm ya down.  Maybe a warm glass of milk, that always calms me down."  Oz followed at a fair distance behind the two.

Both Buffy and Joyce looked up in surprise and a little fear when Faith said that, but the two girls were already gone and nothing could be done.  The drink that usually calmed Faith down often had a shot of whiskey or some other alcoholic beverage in it.

Shaking her head in hopes of foregoing the migraine she felt forming, Buffy turned back to see John getting up and helping Alison to her feet.  Smiling sheepishly, Buffy shrugged and apologized for Willow, "Sorry?"

Alison glared hard at her, but remained quiet, knowing that she might get herself in even _more_ trouble if she said another word.  According to her husband that's how she got into trouble in the first place.

"Buffy, I am so sorry about all of this, I never meant to…" John tried to apologize.

But Buffy waved it off.  "Don't worry John.  I actually feel that I should be the one to apologize.  Here you came all this way with your lovely, if not somewhat insecure wife and she ends up getting threatened not just once, but twice in the same ten-minute period.  And thank you for telling me about…  Thank you John.  Will I be seeing you later today?"

John looked out the front window and saw Amy walking up the sidewalk.  He smiled at his old friend and shook his head in amazement at her skill.  "Uh, maybe.  That is if we're welcome to come back…"

"Ofcourse you are!" Joyce exclaimed.  "Why don't you and Alison come over for dinner later tonight?  That is, if you and Amy's father aren't planning something…"

John just shrugged and turned to his wife, who repeated the gesture.  "I don't know, but I'd doubt it.  Tell you what, we'll call if there's still time and confirm with you then.  But right now I think Amy and her dad are both pissed that we aren't unpacking our things, rather than conversing with old friends about dinner plans."

"Ofcourse," Joyce nodded, understanding.  "Then I'm sure that you understand that we have to ask you to leave.  It was good to finally meet you John."

John smiled himself and kissed the woman on the cheek.  "It was a likewise pleasure meeting you Joy.  We'll have to get together later in the week.  Glad I could help you in unloading your car Buffy."  With that, John escorted Alison to the door, and opened it just as Amy was raising her hand to knock on it.

"Uhhh…" Amy was at a loss of what to do, but John quickly "rescued" her.

"Come on Amy, don't want to make your dad any more angrier than he already is.  Shall we go?" John then dragged both Madison women with him to his car, which fortunately wasn't blocked in by any of the others, and a few minutes later they drove off.

*                       *                       *

For the several minutes that the Madison's were leaving, the silence was palpable inside the Summers' house.  Finally, after John and the witches left, Buffy turned right around and went straight to the kitchen, quickly followed by Xander and Joy.

In the kitchen, they saw Willow nursing a mug of what looked like, what Joy and Buffy hoped was just that, warm milk.  Oz was right behind her, massaging her shoulders while Faith was on the other side of the island, watching with concern.  Faith, Buffy and Xander noted, was playing with one of the sharper kitchen knives idly in her hands.

When Willow looked up and saw Buffy enter the kitchen, she instantly dropped the mug she was holding and stood up and practically flew straight for Buffy.  Oz caught the stool, while Faith caught the mug without spilling a drop of the remaining milk.  "Oh Buffy!  Joy told me what that…that…"

"It's okay Willow, don't worry about it.  Really, I'm okay.  And don't worry, Alison was just being jealous.  I'm sure that you remember Faith and John's relationship?" Buffy asked with a smile.

Willow suddenly blushed and ducked her head slightly.  "Did I overreact?" Willow asked softly.

"Considering what Buffy did?  Young lady, you barely lit a spark to Buffy's torch," Joyce commented.

This time both Buffy and Willow blushed in embarrassment.  Faith joined them when Xander asked, "So what is your relationship to Amy's Uncle Faith?  The way Buffy and Joyce talk about it, and that Miss Alison would actually threaten Buffy she was so jealous, it had to be a doozy."

Faith flushed some and just shrugged.  "Ah, it wasn't anything special.  I mean, we broke up when America went to war, so I doubt it would've lasted any longer than it did.  Even though he is a hunk." Faith grinned evilly at the final remark.

"Well, yeah," Xander replied uncomfortably.  "So it wasn't anything special.  Probably just a few weeks of really hot sex and maybe a couple months of romantic dinners and the like.  Just like any other relationship you could have with any other number of normal guys.  I mean, it wasn't like you two got married."

Faith froze stiff, Buffy looked up in surprise and Willow blushed deeper before starting to hide her giggles.  The uncomfortable silence was tangible in the air after Xander's unwitting statement.  "Wait a minute…" Xander began to look back and forth between all the faces in the room.

"You got married?" Oz asked Faith.

The Dark Slayer shrugged her shoulders slightly before nodding her head to the slight.  "It…its not what you think.  I mean, yeah, so we got married.  It's not that big of a deal.  B says that it happens a lot between Immortals that know each other a really long time.  Hell, she even knows a couple of Immortal couples that _keep_ getting married over and over throughout the centuries.  Besides, John wanted to stay as far away from the war as possible and I was more than ready to jump right in.  Unfortunately, the best that I could hope for was a field nurse, which I did for D-day and all that.  After the initial invasion, I managed to get myself involved with some underground movements and I like to think that I saved a lot of lives.  'Sides, B was already in the war, weren't you?"

Buffy glared at Faith, but it wasn't a hard glare and she didn't say anything.  "Uh, excuse, what war?" Oz asked.

"Actually its more accurate to ask 'which war' but in answer Oz, World War 2," Buffy answered him.

"Oh"

"So you're saying that World War Two broke up your marriage to Amy's Uncle?" Xander tried to clarify.

Buffy and Faith shook their heads no.  "Not the point Xandman," Faith leaned back on the counter and quickly finished Willow's warm milk.  "I don't blame my problems on world events way some modern couples do.  Me and John would have broken off anyway, when it was time.  Pearl Harbor just hastened it."

"Wait, when did you guys first meet John?" Oz asked, curious.

"Uh, 1934 I think," Faith answered uncertainly.

"So you were married how many years?" he asked.  Xander, Buffy, and Joyce all looked at Faith expectantly.  She didn't look like she was about to answer anytime soon.

"Five years, 7 months, two weeks and twelve days," Willow answered like a computer.

"Huh," Oz grunted.

"Five years?" Xander exclaimed.  "You were married to this guy for _five_ _years_!!  No wonder Amy's Aunt was jealous.  Even if the marriage was over fifty years ago."

"Hey, what can I say, I was young, inexperienced," Faith tried to defend her past actions.

"That certainly changed over the next five years, didn't it Faith?" Buffy innocently asked.  Faith blushed deepened to match Willow's hair color.

"Buffy, stop embarrassing Faith!" Willow demanded.  "Thanks Red," Faith replied gratefully.  Willow just smiled at her.

Xander decided that now was the time to step in and be the hero that he always could be, "Mr. Consolation Man."  He walked over to the other side of the island and faced his friends and Buffy's mom, and said, "Okay, I think we've gotten side-tracked here.  Buff, why is it that you called us over here in the first place?  New Big Bad on Patrol last night?  Giles find a new prophesy in his books?"

Buffy looked kind of sheepish as she frowned and looked around for an answer to Xander's question.  Finally, after receiving a reprimanding glare from Joyce, she turned back to Xander and simply said, "Well, I actually asked you all over to meet John.  But Will's tantrum kind of ruined that."  The redhead in question ducked her head in shame.

"Hey!" Buffy reached for her bestest friend since Faith.  "I do not blame you Willow, and I am not angry with you.  In fact I'm actually kinda proud.  It took Faith and me five whole minutes to drag you off of Ally in there.  If someone's to blame, it's Ally.  But everybody needs to stop worrying about that.  We may have a bigger problem heading our way."

"I knew it!" Xander suddenly exclaimed.  When everybody turned and gave him confusing or reprimanding looks, he nervously added, "That there was a new Big Bad.  Or a prophecy…  Or some kind of end of the world thingy…?"

After Xander had stopped speaking, all attention was returned to Buffy when she cleared her throat.  "Actually Xander, it's…more of an 'Immortal' thing than a 'Slayer' thing.  John gave me some information that is, to say the least, greatly disturbing." Buffy said.

She turned to Faith, and a look of embarrassment, or possible anxiety crossed the blonde's face as she asked, "Did I ever tell you about my stint with the CIA?"

Everyone in the room froze and just stared at the blonde.  After no less than two entire uncomfortable minutes of silence, Xander was the one to ask what was on all their minds, "Are you joking Buffy?"

The Eternal Slayer's grimace and slight crease in her forehead gave them all the answer they needed.  Joyce just rolled her eyes, having known that Buffy had been involved with the government in the late sixties/early seventies, but had always assumed the FBI or maybe even the NSA.  Faith just stared wide-eyed at her teacher of the past eighty plus years and was trying to see how long her breath could stop before it became noticeable.  Oz, amazingly enough was reacting much the way Faith was and only Willow and Buffy, one who was holding his hand, the other extremely observant, noticed the fine sheen of cold sweat on his skin.

Xander and Willow however were the ones to just about nearly explode, though for different reasons entirely.  "What do you mean you were in the CIA!!?" they both shouted in perfect unison.

Xander was the first to continue, "You were a spook?  Buffy I knew that there was a whole lot to you, and first I was more than happy just knowing the whole Slayer thing, then there was Angel, and then we find out you're Immortal and are over 3000 years old, nearly four thousand.  And Gabrielle, ancient demon hunter, heck even multi-millionaire, but that you were in the CIA!!  That's just asking too much on faith alone Buff."

And though Willow was a second late, her speech was intermingled with Xander's.  "Buffy I can't believe this!  And how is it that I don't know this from the whole memory transfer thing?  Why didn't I know you were with the government?  I mean, yeah its pretty cool that you were, cause that means that you can probably never get a parking ticket or whatever but telling us, ME, this now, it…this is just taking a lot on faith Buffy."

Buffy, Joyce, Faith, and even Oz just stared at the duo when they finished their unknown bi-play.  Finally, Buffy shook herself out of her funk and answered Xander and Willow's concerns, and hopefully all of the rest's as well.

"Okay, first of all, I was never a 'spook' as the term goes.  I was a field agent and a member of the Files Section, and before you ask it's basically what it sounds like, I was a secretary that filed and documented reports on various missions.  Thing is, when in a position like that, it takes a certain degree of trust, having near-unlimited access to all those classified documents, knowing almost as much as the Directors themselves, maybe even more about their Agency, it can be a liability for them, and an advantage for the right person.  Secondly, no, I don't get any kind of special treatment, and if I get a parking ticket then I actually have to pay nearly double whatever fine or more to make sure that my bosses don't find out about it.  And since I'm more or less "dead" to them then I _really_ don't want them knowing about me, capice?"

Silent nods answered her question from all around the room.  "Anyway, my point is, John was kind of…my partner in the CIA.  We worked on a lot of cases together, but when I joined the Files Section, we lost a lot of contact with each other, but we still managed to get together every once in a while for a cup of coffee or something.  John, today, told me that one of the Intelligence programs I used to work on…has been cancelled."

The silence lasted for barely ten seconds before Xander asked, "What do you mean 'canceled'?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and gave him an exasperated look.  "What do you think it means Xander?  The project has been killed.  Permanently.  And I don't _just_ mean that its funding was cut."

Several faces paled, and Xander nodded silently and muttered, "Oh."

"So what's that got to do with us B?" Faith asked.

Buffy frowned and looked at the ground for a moment.  She looked up and answered, "A lot actually.  But I'll tell you all when you're ready.  Or I guess…when I'm ready.  I've, uh, got to check in with Giles, make sure there's no prophecy or research to do."

Buffy quickly moved past them all before anybody could say another word and grabbed her jacket and was out the door.  "Two guesses as to where she's goin'," Faith quipped, giving a meaningful look at Willow.  Willow matched it and nodded herself.  "Angel's," they said together.

_*                       *                       *_

Buffy was walking along the street across from 'Restfield' cemetery in the daylight, giving the plot of land a whole new look from what she normally saw of it.  Buffy sighed as she stopped alongside a bench and sat down on it.

Despite all of the terrible things that Buffy had seen in the world over her long, long life, she never stopped appreciating true beauty when she could.  Sitting in the warm sun, looking at the bright green grass surrounding the marvelously crafted white and gray marble headstones, mausoleums, and grave markers, Buffy let her troubled spirit calm.  Her calm had barely started when her subconscious reminded her of what happened when the sun went down.  How this beautiful scenery became a hunting ground.

_'53 years in a Shaolin Temple,'_ Buffy thought to herself, _'and all I get is mastery in Kung Fu, title and wisdom of a Shambalah Master, and a way to keep my cool after a rather intense battle.  Sometimes I envy those with lesser lives that can calm their souls with a single, simple meditation.  It took me ten years of constant self-discipline and even longer meditation to even _find_ my inner calm.  Another twenty to learn how to call on it at will, and then I started learning the ways of the Shaolin.  Wasn't easy, that's for sure.  Women's movement hadn't even been conceived of, and certainly not in China.  I guess I really should be thanking Marlo and his demon monks.'_

Buffy laughed as she recalled the memory of how she found herself on the doorstep of the Temple of Light, after more than two hundred years of constant demon hunting and nothing but fighting.

Northern Himalayan Mountains, Southern China:  159 A.D.  

The warrior that had once upon a time called herself "Gabrielle, the Battling Bard of Potadia" now known throughout the lands of Chin and Japa as Shukubuke, "The Blighted Warrior," strode steadily up the mountain.  Her face was set, a grim and hardened image of what it had once been before her teacher, her friend, her true love in a way, was killed to avenge the death of spirits that for as much as she cared, should have gone to hell.

Now, the golden haired warrior had exactly one purpose.  Killing demons.  For the past two hundred years, maybe longer, she had lost count, she had done nothing but scour the lands for evil to hunt and kill.  She had even taken the heads of a few unlucky Immortals that demanded to fight her.  A few were just innocent and thought themselves easily a match for a small girl such as herself, doing only what their teachers had taught them to do.  Many more of her Quickenings however were those of truly evil Immortals, one or two ones that she had hunted down herself.

The warrior once called Gabrielle let her mind drift back into her memories once again, letting her body and subconscious take care of all of her actions, a feat that her teacher had ingrained into her very early on.  The body and the uber-mind are capable of great things when one is not being drowned out by her conscious thoughts.  So Gabrielle learned to withdraw her consciousness and let her body handle the rest.

Her mind, once more separated from the body, quickly drew up her most recent, and her most hated memories.  Her final days with Xena.

Gabrielle didn't drown in her memories, like some older Immortals she had run across did.  Sometimes she wanted to, but it never seemed to happen.  Instead she just lived her memories over again, but again not to where she would get lost in them.  Even before making the pact with the Olympians, Gabrielle was old and had long memories, but she never forgot that she was in the present, and no matter how real her mind could make the memories, they were just that, memories.

So when Gabrielle felt her body stop, she wasted no time on wistful trips down memory lane.  Where she had been constant movement and motion mere moments before, Gabrielle could no longer be told from one rock from another, except that she wore clothing and carried weapons.  Kira-yuurei, the "Ghost Killer," an ancient katana empowered to release ghosts to the afterlife.  Particularly those of evil intent, sending them straight to hell.  Aphrodite's gauntlets, a little something that Gabrielle's dear friend, the Goddess of Love, had ordered her husband to make for Gabrielle, to increase and maximize Gabrielle's already formidable Slayer powers, specifically her speed, agility, and ofcourse, strength.  And ofcourse, the Chakram.  Xena's signature weapon.  Which Gabrielle inherited when the ghost of her beloved friend told her to keep it and use it as it was meant to be used.

Gabrielle hears a few pebbles fall and unconsciously draws the deadly circle-blade weapon.  Her senses are at their peak, drawing upon every lesson she's ever learned in a single instant.  She knows the enemy is there before even they know they are.

Gabrielle jumps straight up some twenty feet and at the halfway point up, she throws, with deadly accuracy, the chakram at a rock where a menacing red-robed figure appears seconds before the flying blade strikes it dead, ricocheting off the corpse onto a nearby rock then to another rock, and then strikes dead three more of the red-robed ninjas, or whatever they were, before sailing up the twenty feet where Gabrielle catches it and draws Kira-yuurei.

Gabrielle lands in the exact spot she left but seconds ago in a crouch, her two blades ready for the combat that is approaching.  She doesn't have to wait long as no less than sixty of the red robes appear out of the rocks themselves and all are aiming to kill her.

_'Demon monks,'_ she realizes as she breaks the chakram in half and pockets one half and uses the other as a cutting blade to her demon-killing katana.  She wastes no more time than that to race forward and meet the monks halfway, taking the heads of two with her first stroke and gutting a third with her half-chakram.

Shortly into the battle, Gabrielle begins to lose herself.  She feels none of the hits the demon monks might have actually landed on her, not that there would be permanent damage, and lets her body go entirely on automatic, her conscious and subconscious merely fueling the power and skills she's using to destroy all 60 of the demon monks.

When there are but a few left, only twelve, Gabrielle snaps out of her trance when she realizes that they are trying to run away.  Angered more by their cowardice than their attack, Gabrielle activates her gauntlets and with a few mighty leaps, she catches up to the running red-robes.  She runs after them at a very impressive pace, catching the last and slowest and barely pausing in decapitating him and opening his torso for all his guts to spill out at a run.

She runs up a large bolder as though it were wooden stairs and leaps some fifty feet straight out across a canyon, which the demons were using a rope bridge to cross.  She waits patiently as the last ten of them cross and then cut the bridge, hoping that it would ensure her inability to follow.  Gabrielle smiled as they still ran up the side of the mountain until they reached a fog bank.

Fortunate for Gabrielle, the path they chose forced them to go single file.  She was able to easily take out all but the last three monks without any sound alerting the ones before them.  When they reached the top of the trail, Gabrielle had tired of her stealth game and made herself known.

*(Translated from ancient Chinese) "Hello there!" Gabrielle called out from a bolder some thirty feet from the demon monks.  They instantly tensed and started looking for their brethren and were extremely shocked when they couldn't find any of them.

"If you're looking for your friends, I killed them all," Gabrielle told them.  She could tell, even though their faces were cowled, they were sneering at her.

"I'm going to kill you as well," she explained, standing straight.  "But first I want information.  Who is your demon lord, where is he, and what are his plans?"

The monks remained silent.  Gabrielle rolled her eyes and sighed.  "Fine.  Have it your way."  And with that, she leaped fifty feet into the air and landed directly in the midst of them, taking down one on her down-stroke landing.

She stood to face the two remaining demon monks and repeated her questions.  Still they refused to even speak, just glaring hatefully at her.  She repeated her questions a third time, and before they would have a chance to answer, she gutted and damn near eviscerated the closest demon before finally just cutting its head off.  The last, seeing this, suddenly shown the fear the Gabrielle liked to see in the demons' eyes.  When she saw that fear, she knew that they now understood what their victims felt and truly knew mortal fear.  She enjoyed showing demons that.

Yet still, the demon did not answer.  Finally, Gabrielle just decided to use her Slayer's gift and try and pry the information from its mind.  Even though Gabrielle had had her Slayer powers for nearly 300 years now, she did not have the experience, nor practice to fully understand her psychic abilities.  But she knew enough to use it at all.

Now she understood why the demon wasn't speaking.  All of them had cut their throats and tongues out, making sure that they couldn't speak.  But the demon's mind was so frazzled with terror that Gabrielle could get no more than the demon lord's name, Marlo.  Deciding to take a brief amount of pity on the demon, she beheaded it with a single stroke that it probably never even saw coming.

The demon monk's lifeless body slumped to the ground with a silent thud, leaving Gabrielle once more with only the winds and the rocks as companions.  Only complete silence was worse, she scowled to herself.  She deactivated her gauntlets and moved off from the site where the demons were slain, planning on working off some of her residual energy by hunting tonight's meal.

Seeing no game for at least three miles in all directions, Gabrielle realized that she might have to head back down the mountain to get anything to eat.  She decided to rough it, because she knew with little doubt that Marlo was in _this_ area.  That's why the demon monks had been heading in this direction.  And she wasn't going to let a little thing like dying of hunger stop her from killing another demon.

Sighing in frustration and annoyance, Gabrielle headed back towards the fog bank, planning on working off her frustration by whittling out a few new bone daggers.  Demon bones were always better to use than human ones, more resilient to heat.

She got the shock of her life up till then however when she came to the spot where she had killed the last of the demon monks.  They were gone.  Well, that wasn't too surprising since most demons either evaporated or disappeared after you killed them anyway, some just took longer.  What was shocking was that where the demons had stood at the edge of the fog, now the fog had lifted and Gabrielle could see massive carved stone stairs, leading up to a temple that really was at the _top_ of the mountain.  She didn't recognize the temple, but she didn't need a sign to tell her that that was where Marlo was.

She quickly set off up the stone staircase, taking them three at a time.  Despite her rapid pace though, it still took Gabrielle the better part of an hour to reach the temple's outer gates.  When she reached them, she stopped.  She felt a slight cramping sensation in her gut, and that usually meant…

Gabrielle jumped back a second before the giant stone club slammed down where she had been standing.  She looked up and actually raised an eyebrow and grinned at seeing a twelve-foot stone giant standing before her.  Stone giants weren't like the ones back west.  These had gray, stone-colored skin, which was actually just as hard, and were taller and far stronger than all of the giants back in Greece.  Gabrielle casually noticed that he had another forty some odd demon monks behind him among the rocks.

**"Who are you stranger?"** the stone giant asked in his larger voice.

Gabrielle shrugged.  "I have no name.  But you can call me death unless you explain why to tried to strike me with your club." She answered matter-of-factly.

The giant growled and swung his club at her once again.  She had time to raise her eyebrow again, wondering at all giant's stupidity, before leaping up and landing on the club as it passed under her.

Gabrielle had little choice but to hold on for dear life as the giant continuously tried to swing her off his weapon like she might try to swat a fly off of her sword.  Speaking of which…

Gabrielle drew a second sword in addition to her katana and just before the giant was about to overhand slam his club onto the ground in hopes of shaking her off, Gabrielle jumped off the club and onto the back of the giant's neck.  She quickly sliced a bloodless cut in the giant's back with her second sword, and then replaced with the katana to keep it from healing and to help her keep a hand hold as she drew back the second sword and with one gauntlet empowered stroke, severed the giant's head from its body.

She jumped down and ran from the body before it could fall and crush her, no matter which way it would fall and turned to the demon monks while muttering, "They never learn."

The demon monks, still staring in awe at the defeat of the deadliest creature they could have allied themselves with in less time than it took a stone to fall from a hand to the floor the feet were standing on, were torn between running for their unholy lives…or trying to get revenge for their fallen comrades and ally, the Stone Giant.

Gabrielle made the decision for them.  She began to take them apart, almost literally in a few cases, like a madwoman.  The forty demon monks put up a good enough fight to actually make Gabrielle tired after she had killed the last of them.  But she chalked it up to taking out over a hundred demon monks and a stone giant in less than an hour with no food inbetween.

After Gabrielle was sure there were no more threats, she walked up to the Temple's gates and read the writing over the top.  "Huh, Temple of Light," she read aloud.  She shrugged and opened the gates, which were surprisingly unlocked, and stepped inside only to find more steps that led up to the Temple's inner gates, or the front door.  "Well, I guess I can at least spend the night here and get some more supplies before moving on.  Not to mention, if I come across Marlo here, better sooner than later."

Gabrielle took the stairs at a more moderate pace than she had outside, not believing any threat to be close enough to be counted as immediate and took about the same amount of time that it took her to scale the stairs outside, even though these inner stairs were far fewer.

When she got to the door, she was mildly surprised, to say she wasn't expecting it but that's all, to see the doors opening of their own accord at her approach.  Pausing, Gabrielle waited to make sure that there was no trap or monster or troops on the other side waiting to spring out.  Satisfied when the door opened enough to confirm that there was no trap or troops, Gabrielle stepped forward, entering the Temple of Light.

Sunnydale, California:  1998 A.D.

Buffy was drawn out of her subconscious memories by a loud honking directly in front of her.  Surprised, Buffy looked up and saw a bus sitting idle in front of her with the door open.  The driver was looking at her expectantly.

Buffy blushed as she figured out what he was waiting for.  "Sorry, I was just resting my feet.  Sorry!" she called out when he closed the doors in annoyance.

Shrugging sheepishly, Buffy sighed and noticed that it was still another few hours till sundown and she still needed to talk with Giles about her patrol that evening.  She stood up and figured her path for getting to Giles' and started walking, going back into her memories.

Temple of Light, Himalayan Mountains:  159 A.D.

Gabrielle stepped forward, entering the Temple of Light.  It was rather unimpressive, when compared to other temples she had been in over her life, Aphrodite's and Ares' coming to mind.

Simple tiled floors, a brownish/orange earthen color supported on both sides by large identically colored columns and a very high ceiling with slits along the walls to provide light and ventilation.  She quickly walked down the length of the temple to the main alter at the end of the "hall", her hand on the hilt of her sword in case she needed to draw it, in the instance of an ambush.

Gabrielle stopped her progression when she reached the end of the hall.  She turned in a short circle, looking at everything and listening to everything.  Suddenly, the temple doors closed.  Not violently, but closed faster than Gabrielle could have run through them, even if she had.  Instead she just froze and watched the doors shut, listening for movement.  Listening _to_ the movement.

A second later, Gabrielle's blade was drawn and at the throat of a young bald man in an orange robe with several strings of beads around his neck.  "Who are you?" she snapped out in the last local language she'd heard.  Mongolian maybe?  She'd lost track.

Despite his obvious peril, the young man, maybe thirty years old, was extremely calm and merely folded his hands and stared at the girl, but did not answer.

Squinting her eyes in anger, Gabrielle snapped out in Chinese, "Answer me!"  And as luck would have it at that very moment, Gabrielle felt a tingling start at the top of her spine and then travel up her neck and explode energy inside her brain.  _'Oh great.  Not now!'_ she thought.

"He cannot," a heavily accented voice spoke behind her.  Squinting at the man before her, Gabrielle slowly lowered her sword and turned around, keeping the blade at the ready.  Standing at the end of a balcony at the top of a set of stairs was a man that looked as old as he probably was.  He too was bald, his eyes were small and squinted, and he wore the same outfit as the young man did, except that his beads were bigger.

"He has taken a vow of silence," the old man/Immortal continued.  "Who are you and how did you come to be here?" he asked.

"My name is of no consequence," Gabrielle snapped harshly.  "I am a demon hunter, wielder of Kira-yuurei, and student of Xena: the Warrior Princess.  I'm looking for one that calls himself "Marlo".  I wish to kill him."

"What has he done?" the old man asked.

Gabrielle squinted her eyes again in distrust.  She took out one of the throwing stars she had taken from the last Immortal that had challenged her.  She slipping it between her fingers and then jerked her arm out and the star flew and imbedded itself in the wood before another bald man in an orange robe.  He simply stopped but gave no other reaction.  Gabrielle had to respect that kind of bravery.

"You have good reflexes," the old man commented.

"Where is Marlo?" Gabrielle asked harshly.

Slowly the old man descended the stairs and made his way towards the blonde.  When he was inside seven paces, Gabrielle raised her blade in his direction.  He stopped.

"I do not know the man you are looking for, but is your vengeance so great that you must find him at the cost of innocents?" the old man asked, the same way she would have a few centuries ago.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes and snorted.  "I'm not after vengeance.  He's a demon lord.  I ran into his demon monks at the base of this mountain and killed them.  And if you must know, the demon monks had sacrificed everyone in a village before moving up the mountain.  Everyone.  Now, Immortal, where is Marlo?"

"You carry a great anger," the old man/Immortal observed.  "But you are blinding yourself.  Even if you have not one objective, vengeance still drives your soul.  Why must you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders?  Why must you be the one to kill this demon lord?"

Gabrielle kept her sword poised and answered him, "Who else would do it?  You?  You don't even believe that the creature I'm after even is a demon, so how would you handle it?  If I lay down and rest, even for a day, more innocent people will die because I didn't stop the ones that killed them.  So, for this century, its demons.  The next, I don't know, I may go back to warlords and evil gods.  Or maybe I'll finally try and bring down Rome.  You know what?  I really don't care what I end up doing, just as long as the rest of the world wakes up in the morning, that's fine by me.  Now, save your "Holier than thou" crap for someone that actually deserves it.  How old are you anyway?"

The old man suddenly got a twinkle in his eye that made him seem years younger.  "Some call me…Ancient," he answered cryptically.  "My name is Lo Si, and I am the proprietor here.  This is the Temple of Light, and no evil may enter the gates that surround it.  You will not need that," he said, finally giving notice to the katana in her hand.

Gabrielle's mouth twitched back in a possible sneer and she tensed her muscles.  "Then explain the hundred demon monks outside along with the stone giant?" she sneered.

Lo Si frowned a little but remained where he was.  "The stone giant could enter the Temple gates and then "invite" the demon monks inside.  But you say that you killed all the demons.  Then how could one called Marlo enter?"

"Demon Lords are different from their lessees.  It requires more than just holy protection magic to keep them out.  Particularly if they can tempt one of your own on the outside and take over his body.  And I would have known if I'd killed a Demon lord out there.  Like I said, they're different from the rest.  I've already killed two, and witnessed the death of a third.  And until I've got proof that you aren't going to try and kill me and take my head, I'm not lowering my sword.  Now how old are you again?"

"This is holy ground," Lo Si pointed out.

Gabrielle blinked.  Once.  Twice.  Then she lowered her katana and relaxed a great deal.  "Whoops.  My bad." She muttered as she sheathed all of her weapons.

"It is understandable.  I take it then that the Immortals of the world have not yet…quieted down?" Lo Si asked.

Gabrielle shook her head regretfully.  "No.  They all still play that infernal 'Game.'  Gods, what a name for a slaughter that'll more than likely last thousands of years.  I apologize for my rudeness Lo Si."  Gabrielle then clapped her fists together and bowed low before the venerable Immortal.

"You are Samurai?" Lo Si observed.  Gabrielle nodded.

"I know the ways of Bushido, but I only count myself a Samurai in the sword and honor.  I hold to no master but my own." She explained with a bit of a bite.

Lo Si nodded sagely.  "A Ronin then.  You are welcome here 'Tenjikurounin'.  This is a Shaolin temple, and we do not turn away those that need our help.  Even if it may turn out, that we may need your help."

"You haven't told me how old you are," Gabrielle observed.  Lo Si nodded.

"How old are you?" he asked.

Gabrielle looked up at the sky and bit her lower lip.  After several minutes thinking, she answered, "I am over a thousand years old.  I hope you aren't expecting an exact number because I've been wandering for too long to keep track that well.  But at my last count…" Gabrielle began mumbling mostly to herself so Lo Si couldn't understand whatever she was saying until, "Yeah, I'm about 1,200 years old, give or take a century."

Lo Si's eyes went rather wide.  "Then you have the advantage on me in being Ancient.  I am only, at my best, five hundred and fifty years old.  I have lived in this monastery for most of my mortal life, only wandering out for herbs or because we are needed in the villages below.  It is also why I "died" at such an old age.  I am sorry that you were not as lucky."

Gabrielle shrugged as she noticed that the two Immortals were now alone in the temple proper.  "Don't worry about it," she assured him.  "Look why don't—"

She never finished her sentence as at that moment, a terrified scream broke out throughout the entire temple.  Gabrielle no longer let things like fear and worry bother her, she just reacted.  Grabbing her katana and drawing it, she jumped up and leaped onto the nearest pillar and bounced off like her chakram down the passage that sounded like where the screams were coming from.

Lo Si watched her go for a moment before following at his fastest pace.

A few minutes of desperate searching later, Gabrielle came to where the screams had originated from, and where they had stopped but moments before.  All she found was the stains of blood and guts on the floor and walls.  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, converting her grief into anger to use against the demon that had done this travesty.  Not even pausing, Gabrielle snarled and dashed out of the room, using the sudden cramping feeling in her gut as a homing device.

Barely an hour after the attack, Gabrielle found her target.  It was actually stalking its next victim, another of the Shaolin priests, a young boy that had whites where his eyes should be.  Gabrielle didn't wait for the beast to attack, she leaped up from her hiding place and struck it in its hiding place.  The beast let out a horrible screech, startling the child, who then raced out of the room they were in.

Cursing at the loss of its meal, the demon lord, which looked like a canine's bones made five times as larger, then squished and wrapped in the flesh of a fresh, red, cow's bladder with red bats wings out of its back and a mouth bigger than a Titan's butt, no doubt full of yellowed teeth, turned to Gabrielle who looked just as intimidating as the monster did.

**"Who the hell do you think you are, attacking me like that?"**the Demon lord asked.

"Are you Marlo?" Gabrielle answered.

**"And what if I am?"** it asked back.

Gabrielle just shrugged.  "No reason.  Just making sure that I only have one of you to kill."

The demon laughed at the response and answered back, **"I am the demon you seek child, but be warned, I am over three hundred years old, and more powerful than you can imagine.  I am the Demon Lord Marlo, ruler of the 8th circle of the Pit!  And what are you and you're little pig sticker going to do about it?"**

Gabrielle raised an eyebrow, something she did when considering how truly stupid the creature she was dealing with at the moment truly was.  "Funny.  I was just discussing my age with Lo Si some minutes ago.  I'm over a thousand years old demon, and I only hunted you to stop you.  And my little pig sticker?  Its name is Kira-yuurei."  And with that said, and the Demon Lord's eyes going wide in shock, Gabrielle attacked and cut the Demon Lord's arm off.

It screeched and jumped back, using its wings to further the distance between itself and the Eternal Slayer. ** "You…you, you are the _Blighted One_!"** the demon screeched, holding its wound as it flew there in the room.  **"You are the Chosen One of the Olympians, the Golden Fire of the planes, the Eternal Slayer!!"**

"Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  Now save us all some trouble here and come down so I can kill you already." Gabrielle quipped.  The beast just snarled in reply.

"Then perhaps I can be of some help," an accented voice was heard.  Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Lo Si drops onto the back of the demon's neck, quickly forcing it to the ground, growling in its rage.

Yet before Gabrielle could do anything, Lo Si began to fight the demon, moving with the grace of a swan on water past the demon lord's clumsy attempts at attacks.  The blonde Ronin stood there for several moments, amazed at the style of fighting the Immortal Shaolin was using.  Finally, the beast had had enough and decided to use its superior size and strength to its advantage by pile driving the Immortal.  It seemed to backfire though when Lo Si stepped casually out of the way and _threw_ the demon past him, straight at Gabrielle.

She was ready, fortunately, and as the demon came flying towards her, she flashed out with her sword and cut the demon's head off with a single stroke, followed by a lightning stab in its heart.  Unfortunately, Gabrielle was unprepared for when the Demon Lord actually fell dead right on top of her, and to add to her luck, it took another five minutes for the demon to decompose completely.

Lo Si helped her out from under the demon's corpse though and, slightly out of breath, Gabrielle collapsed before the Shaolin priest.  "You gotta teach me how to do that!" she told him between raving breaths.

"I can teach you a great deal many things," Lo Si said in reply, "And I imagine the same can be said for you.  You are welcome to stay here…Slayer."

Gabrielle grinned at the old faced Immortal and nodded her head, taking his hand to stand her up.

Giles' Apartment Sunnydale, California:  1998 A.D.

Buffy snapped out of her memories once more when she realized that she was at her destination, Giles' apartment.  She looked down at her condition to make sure that she hadn't been in a car wreck in her hypnotic walk over here.

She noticed the time was just a few minutes after she left the bench by the cemetery and quickly walked up to Giles door and rung the doorbell.  She wrung it again after a silence of thirty or more seconds.  She was about to ring it a third time when the door suddenly opened, and there was Giles looking like he'd just woken up.  Even though it was only 4:30 in the afternoon.

"Buffy?  What are you doing here at the ungodly hour of…" Giles paused as he looked at his watch, and then Buffy got to watch her Watcher as he realized that it was mid to late afternoon.  "Um, well that is…uhm…what can I do for you Buffy?" he finished pleasantly, trying to save as much face as possible.

Buffy just shrugged and entered Giles' apartment and recognized the status of hastily put away research materials, most left out or half covered, and Giles pulling his version of an all-nighter, which usually consisted of two days without any sleep.  "Been busy Giles?" Buffy asked casually.

"Um, as a matter of fact yes.  I've, uh, been going through my books, the uh the…" Giles stuttered.

"The Watcher's Diaries?" Buffy supplied helpfully.

"Um, yes!  The diaries…" Giles trailed off as he walked into his kitchen, presumably to make some tea.

"Giles, is everything all right?" Buffy asked, concerned.

Giles jumped at the sound of her voice and shaking turned around to face her, and if she didn't know any better, she'd say that he had a look of guilt or shame on his face.  Finally, Buffy understood, _without_ reading his mind.

"It's the Cruciamentum isn't it?" she asked softly.

Giles reaction was the same as though she'd just said she wanted to rape him and have his lovechild.  Pure shock intermingled with absolute fear.  "How-how did you know…about that?" he stuttered.

Buffy shrugged and walked calmly, if not somewhat somberly into the Watcher's living room.  "When are they coming?" she asked stoically.

"Answer my question Buffy, how do you know about the Cruciamentum?" Giles asked testily as he stalked up behind her.

She turned around rapidly and stared the physically older man down like he was a two year old.  "How long?" she hissed at him.  Giles unconsciously gulped and took a step back from the Slayer.  An Immortal Slayer Giles found he had to remind himself.  He ducked his head and whispered, "Four days," and then turned back to the kitchen to finish his tea.

Buffy sighed and followed him.  "I know about the Cruciamentum because I've lived through it Giles," she answered his question.  "I know that you've no doubt been looking through all the Watcher's Diaries, looking for all references to Slayers that match mine or Faith's description?"

Giles returned holding one of his fine china teacups in his had.  He took a long swig before finally answering her back.  "I actually only found one reference that matched Faith.  A girl born in Boston, her name was never recorded because her Watcher was killed in active duty that actually died in her Cruciamentum.  Her description and feats perfectly describe Faith."

"As for you, Buffy, I have so far found no less than 49 references that match your description and, how shall I say…prowess in handling your opponents." Giles continued before the Gold Slayer could say anything.  "In fact, I imagine that if I were to look for all of the greatest Slayers in all of history, I would find you at the source of them, wouldn't I?"

Buffy shrugged, but stayed where she was with her arms crossed.  "I've worked under a Watcher…oh I don't know…maybe 79 times, maybe only 78, not including you of course.  Did you know that the Watcher's Council wasn't actually founded until the late 1600's?  It's true.  Before that, Slayers just did what they did best and were meant to do.  Fight and kill demons.  I managed to find several and train them the way that Xena trained the first _true_ Slayer, helped them, and sometimes even learned a thing or two from them.  Back then, before the Watcher's Council, a Slayer's life expectancy was about five to ten years after she gets Chosen.  Now…its lucky if they make it past six months without dying once.  And Giles that was when general life expectancy of the population of the entire human race was less than 35.  Now, your life expectancy is planned into the early hundreds, late eighties on an average.  If I have to take their damn test to make sure that they don't look for other girls to kill…  Giles, just give me the shot and let's be done with it."

"Buffy, I can't…" Giles started to say.

Buffy glared at the middle-aged man.  She stared steadily at him for some time before finally saying, "Just give me the damn shot."

Giles ducked his head and removed his glasses.  He grabbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed, easing the pressure on his sinuses some.  Finally, he simply sighed and replaced his spectacles and then walked up the stairs to his bedroom to get the package he had received in the mail three days ago, along with their instructions of how to use the drug.

He walked slowly back down the stairs, hoping to give Buffy ample amount of time to change her mind and leave.  She just stood there, in his living room, waiting for him.  He stood before her and held the syringe and bottled drug before her.

"Buffy…are-are you sure about this?" he asked with hesitation, and a heavy guilt on his heart.  "I never would have…  They said that they would give you the injections themselves…and I couldn't let them…"

"It is all right Giles," Buffy put her hand on his arm, comforting him with her presence.  "I told you, I've been through this before.  The drug is designed to be temporary.  And along with my Immortal physiology, all traces of it will be gone the day after the test.  Though I should probably admit, sometimes I take this drug myself to maintain a discretion of secrecy.  You understand?"

Giles nodded, somberly, but he did understand.  Just before he could fill the syringe however, Buffy's hand on his arm tightened somewhat, stilling him.  Giles looked up and unconsciously gulped at Buffy's hard stare.

"And one last thing," Buffy said, "if you ever, _ever_, even think about putting Faith through this…I will kill you, and all of the Council members, do you still understand me Giles?"

Giles nodded tightly, a glint of determination in his eyes.  "If it weren't for you telling me to do this now Buffy, I think that I would either have let the Council kill me…or killed them myself if they had tried to force you into the Cruciamentum."

Buffy smiled warmly at the man that she could not deny she loved like a father.  "I'm glad to see that some of Ripper is still in there.  And don't worry about me Giles.  No one, not even the Gods, can _force_ me to do anything that I do not wish to do already.  Besides, it'll be fun."

Laughing at the concept of Buffy, as a completely normal girl, facing off against a deliberately captured and turned powerful vampire and calling it "_fun_" well it was just plain funny.  He filled the syringe of the weakening drug and then set the bottle aside.  He turned towards Buffy and was about to ask, when he saw that she had already rolled up her sleeve to present her arm for the injection.  With no more argument, Giles quickly found a vein, popped it, and then injected the drug swiftly, and completely.  He then quickly put all of the equipment away and tried to look useful by shuffling or organizing the papers on his desk.

Grimacing, Buffy rubbed her arm where the needle had punctured and stood up.  "Well, I'm sure you'll understand if I ask Faith and the others to patrol tonight.  I think I'll spend some time with Angel.  What day do they arrive, and have they told you where they intend to 'host' this little powwow?"

Giles shook his head.  "The letter of instructions that came with the, the, the drug said that they would be arriving seven days after its arrival, and that the Cruciamentum would take place precisely on…on, on your birthday."

Buffy sighed.  "And I was hoping to actually get to eat my cake this year," she muttered as she left Giles' apartment.  She quickly stepped back inside though, less than a second after the door had closed and asked, "You wanna come over for dinner tonight?  Joy already invited some other friends, and I don't see why you shouldn't join us Giles, I mean, after all you are like family, and there is no way that I'm going to let this whole no sleeping, no eating, nothing but researching-ness go on for any longer.  Show up at 7 prompt, and…try not to wear tweed.  Please."

That said, Buffy closed the door and headed back for her home on Revello Drive, intent on sharing her new situation with the other Slayerettes.  Luck would have it though, that at that moment her brain suddenly tingles with the faint energy of another Immortal.  She tries to lock it down, but she can get no more than the direction he or she was in.

Buffy sighed, something she seemed to be doing a lot of today, as she considered her options.  Run from the Immortal and run into him or her later in the week, and maybe have Faith, Joy, or even Cordelia encounter them first and run the risk of something bad happening to one of them while she is currently not at her peak.  OR, head towards the Immortal, stay hidden and out of _their_ range, and hope that it is either John or Joy or some other Immortal that she knows is in town or is at the very least peaceful.

Her face set, Buffy makes up her mind.  She's never been a coward, and never when she actively held the advantage, running only when she knew she had a strong chance of losing or getting one of her friends hurt or killed.  At the moment, neither was the case.  Buffy started homing in on the other Immortal.

TBC…


	2. Things you never say to an Immortal blon...

Disclaimer:             Concept of Immortals belongs to Rysher Entertainment and creators of the Highlander movies and TV show.  Buffy: the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy Productions.  This is an original piece of fiction based on the merging of these two "universes".  Similarity to other fics, specifically Akraen's "The Immortal Life of Elisabeth Summers", has been acknowledged and in general accepted by the various fellow authors.  Spoilers for mostly Buffy episodes of the third season or prior.

**Chapter 2:**

Surprisingly, it did not take her as long as she thought that it might to find the Immortal in question.  He didn't move away, he didn't run or try to hide at all, but at the same time he didn't exactly move towards her either, so she knew that he wasn't purposely following her.  He wasn't staying still either, so she knew it wasn't a trap.  In fact, she surmised that it was unlikely that he even sensed her at all.

And yes it was a he, because she was looking at him right now and saw who it was that triggered her senses.  An annoyance if there ever was one in her life on the Hellmouth.  She masked her own Quickening, something that she'd had to learn how to do over the centuries, making sure that no one could sense her Immortality, but unfortunately, also keeping her from sensing others.  That hardly mattered now that she knew exactly who was the Immortal.

She was surprised that he was just walking around the downtown shops, just window-shopping.  She managed to catch up with him just as he was passing an outdoor restaurant.

She came up directly behind his 4'3" chubby frame with equally short black hair that hung greasily to his skull.  He was wearing a multi-colored horizontal striped polo shirt, a fashion 'don't' that even Xander avoided.  She tapped him annoyedly on his shoulder once and then stepped back and crossed her arms.  The short man jumped at the contact and then spun around in near-terror to face her, a plastic butter knife in his chubby hand.

"Buffy!" Jonothan exclaimed, dropping the knife he had picked up from a nearby table.  "What-what can I do for you?"

Buffy squinted her eyes and practically scowled in anger.  "Merlin.  It's been too long.  How's the lady of the lake?" she asked in an airy "bubble head" voice.

Jonothan, where he had be frightened and nervous before, rapidly changed his demeanor to calm and confidant.  "I'll have you know that she's just fine.  How are the kids by the way?"

"Still healthy.  What do you want?" Buffy dropped the airhead talk and asked seriously.

"I have no idea what you mean," Jonothan said in a way that was pure sarcasm.

"I mean that you only ever drop the cloak around your Immortality when you want to get my attention.  Well, congratulations, you've got it.  Now what do you want Merlin?" Buffy hissed.

Jonothan merely smiled and shrugged and turned around to start window-shopping again.  "Well, you've got me there Buffy.  But I must apologize, it was not your attention that I desired.  I cast a simple scrying spell this morning, and I was surprised needless to say that I found that there was an extra Immortal on the Hellmouth.  So I began to surmise that it was one of…your charges.  First place on my stop, every shopping place in Sunnydale, to see if it was Cordelia."

"It's not," Buffy said simply, looking across the street.

"Oh, then who is it?  Xander?  Willow?" Jonothan asked with heavy concern.

"No, an old friend that married Amy Madison's aunt," Buffy told him.  "He swung by the house earlier, and unfortunately, Alison, Amy's aunt, got kind of a potty mouth and Willow attacked her because of some things she said about me."

Jonothan raised an eyebrow at the information.  Not much could set off Willow Rosenberg in his experiences with her.  "Oh.  What did she say?" he asked.

"The usual."

Jonothan nodded and sighed in empathy with the only slightly taller blonde.  "Only a pup compared to the Immortals she knows, abandoned your teacher, died whoring on the streets, couldn't win a fight without sleeping with the Immortal and then taking his head in bed?" Jonothan listed the "usual".

Buffy nodded, adding, "Except for the part about sleeping with a guy to get his head," Buffy said as they passed a couple of older college Frat boys, "She called me a 'little girl' before I let it get that far."

Jonothan winced and shook his head.  "Why do I suddenly feel sorry for her?"

Buffy shrugged.  "Don't worry about it.  All I did was choke her.  Willow tried to kill her."

The two ancient Immortals were silent for some time before speaking again, just walking along.  "She really has grown…fond of you hasn't she?" Jonothan asked finally.

"Ya think?" Buffy sarcastically responded.  "The Cruciamentum is in six days.  I've already had my Watcher inject me.  I want you to…" Buffy said.

"Make sure that they don't try the same thing with Faith," Jonothan finished for her.  "Don't worry about that Buffy.  What you should be worried about is if I find out where those Watchers are going to hold it and if I get to them before you do."

"You know, I respect Giles, and from what you've said of him in your vague references, you don't have to keep trying to protect him.  I don't harm the innocent.  And knowing you, you probably held his arm, forcing him to inject you," Jonothan said.

Buffy shrugged.  "You swore 137 years ago that you would kill every single Watcher that you ever came across and make them suffer in ways that the girls "they killed" would be avenged from the suffering that had been inflicted upon them.  You also swore to one day destroy the Watcher's Council…when the time was right.  I understand your feelings, and your reasons Merlin, but…I can't let you kill them, not yet.  And not Giles.  I may no longer be at full strength for several more days here, but I can still beat you, and match you in a magic duel, so do not force my hand."

"I learned my lesson after the last time," Jonothan said.  "And I will do as you ask.  Do you want me to go on "vacation" while the Watchers are here?"

"No, that won't be necessary.  Just make sure they stay away from Faith and the other kids," Buffy told him.

"Of course," he said as she walked off and disappeared into the crowd.  Shortly after, he too seemed to disappear into the winds.

Thirty or more minutes later, Buffy was entering her home, finally releasing the cloak on her Quickening, allowing Faith and Joy to sense her presence.  When she found she couldn't sense their though, she became concerned and looked throughout the entire household before ending up in the kitchen, finding everyone gone.  She found a note on the counter, written in the 'Mom-code' that she and Joy had developed.

"Gone to the Gallery, back in 3 hours," Buffy read aloud.  _'What the hell does she mean she took them on Patrol!? Sunset isn't for another hour!'_ Buffy thought in response to the note.

That was when Buffy noticed the flashing light on the answering machine.  She quickly crossed the kitchen and pressed the button.  The machine rewound the tape, clicked and began playback.  "_You have one new message._" The mechanical voice said.

"_Buffy!  It's Giles!  It's about ten minutes after you left my apartment.  I…I'm not sure how to say this Buffy…but, but _something_ is going to happen tonight.  I'm not exactly sure what—"_

Suddenly Giles' voice was cut off as Buffy heard the distinct click of the phone being picked up and next she heard was Joy's voice speaking anxiously to the Watcher.  "_Rupert!  Where's Buffy?_" Joy, Buffy could tell, practically shouted into the phone.

"_Joyce?_" Giles started, surprised to hear the woman's voice.

"_Rupert!_" Joyce's voice carried clear her warning to the Watcher.

"_Oh, um, yes, Buffy…_" Giles stuttered, trying to stall as long as he could.  "_Well, as I said, she left ten minutes ago, so I don't know _exactly_ where she is…_"

"_What's the matter Rupert?  Why are you calling for Buffy if you just saw her?_" Joyce interrupted him when it became clear he couldn't answer her question.

"_I'm afraid Joyce…the Watchers are already here.  Please Joyce, don't ask anymore, I can't say anything else, and especially not over the phone—_" Suddenly Giles was cut off as the machine stopped playback.

Buffy frowned in confusion and anger.  As much as she might need, work with, and even like some Watchers, she still hated them.

_*                       *                       *_

Several minutes later, during which Buffy used to "gear up" as much as she could considering her prey was only vampires, the doorbell suddenly and unexpectedly rung.  Frowning, and placing the last of her stakes and holy water stashes, Buffy went to the door and was surprised to find Cordelia of all people on the other side.

"Cordelia?" Buffy asked in complete confusion.  "What are you doing here?"

The snob "Queen" of Sunnydale High brushed past the Eternal Slayer like she wasn't even there.  "Hello?  You did call and say that you wanted us over for some Scooby thing or something," Cordelia answered walking majestically into the living room.  "So here I am, and where is everyone else, and what's the big emergency?"

"Uh, Cordy, I called you over six hours ago.  You said you were busy," Buffy said half-understanding.  "And I was just going to join the others over at Giles'.  Apparently some deal with the Watchers is going down tonight.  I don't know the whole story, but if you really wanna help, maybe you should come along."

Cordelia stared at the Immortal for several seconds before shrugging and with a bored face followed the blonde outside.  "Sure, whatever.  Unfortunately, we can't take my car; I had Harmony drop me off around the corner after we got done at the mall.  What?  I can't have my friends know that I'm hanging out at a loser's house!"

Buffy chuckled to herself and almost snorted.  "Don't worry.  I've got something in the garage."

Cordelia, confused, silently followed the blonde to the garage.  Once inside, Cordelia saw several things that she immediately recognized, but never would have guessed Buffy Summers at owning.  There were at least three tarp-covered motorcycles, another tarp covering what looked to be a car, but Cordy couldn't tell _what_ car with the tarp, and an entire wall full of weapons.  Swords, axes, blades, clubs, kendo sticks, and hundreds of other items that Cordelia didn't know the name of and had seen in the Library or at Giles' apartment.

"Whoa," Cordelia mumbled as she took in the filled spaces of the cramped room.

"Yeah, we normally would put this stuff in the basement or attic, but then we'd have to divide up the weapons and put them in specific hiding spots, and that's just a load of hassle I'd rather avoid to be honest with you." Buffy answered Cordelia's muted response.

"And now for the reason I brought you out here," Buffy said almost dramatically as she flipped off the brown tarp of one of the motorcycles.  It was a chrome and black Harley Davidson XLH® Sportster® with an overhead valve Twin V engine and a custom leather double seat.  Cordelia read the name on the side of the bike that gave it away.

"Wow!" Cordelia exclaimed at the beautiful machine that had been hidden beneath the tarp.   "I didn't know you owned one of these!" the beauty queen exclaimed.

"Well, technically I don't," Buffy explained as she grabbed a helmet off the wall and then walked back to the bike.  "Technically Joy owns it, you know my Mom?" Buffy reminded the girl at her confused look.  Cordelia nodded and Buffy got on the bike and handed the helmet to her.

"Get on," was all she said before starting up the very loud and thunderous engine.  Cordelia tried to say something, but the engine was too loud, and Buffy's look told her that it would be wise not to decline.

So, taking a deep breath of courage, Cordelia fit the helmet as carefully as she could onto her head, trying not to give herself helmet hair.  Buffy's look of impatience told her to hurry up, and the Eternal Slayer revving the engine louder added to it.  Cordelia quickly swung herself onto the Sportster, just behind Buffy, grateful that she was wearing her designer jeans rather than the designer skirt she had on earlier today at the mall.  Before the Queen C of Sunnydale could have another thought, she squealed in surprise as Buffy jetted them out of the garage and onto the street, almost faster than she could get her arms around Buffy's taut waist.

With the helmet, and her head ducked tight behind Buffy's shoulder, Cordelia didn't see much of the ride, instead just wishing it to be over as soon as possible.  Buffy didn't say anything, instead focusing on driving safely, and breathing what with Cordy's iron clad grip around her chest and lungs.  Less than fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Giles' townhouse, and Buffy wasn't that surprised to see the Jeep just outside.

Stopping and parking the Sportster® Buffy stayed put for a moment before trying to move any to get Cordelia to let go of her.  "Cordy?  Cordy?  _Cordelia!_" Buffy finally snapped at the brunette.  The girl whimpered something, when Buffy asked her to repeat it, she heard more clearly, "Is it over yet?" in a timid little girl voice.

"For the past five minutes," Buffy answered tiredly.

That seemed to snap Cordelia out of it as she sat up straight and realized that they weren't in an incredibly long turn but the bike was just resting on it's stand.  "Oh," she muttered, embarrassed and quickly swung her legs around and got her feet back on steady ground, though her legs were still a bit weak and wobbly.  She quickly removed the helmet and was pleasantly surprised that her hair was still perfect rather than disarrayed or flat.  "Uh, thanks," Cordelia muttered, gesturing aimlessly at the helmet.

"No problem," Buffy said easily, smiling at the girl.  "Shall we go in?" the Slayer asked after several moments.  Cordelia just hastily nodded, not saying anymore and rushed towards' Giles' door.

The walk was short from the parked bike to the front door.  Cordelia was about to bust right in, but Buffy held her back and indicated the doorbell, with a frown on her face.  Cordelia let out a childish sigh and impatiently pressed the doorbell.  The simple two-tone chime echoed through the house and Buffy was surprised to sense Joy and Faith come into normal range only after the doorbell rang.  Perhaps they had been hiding their quickening, because Buffy knew that Giles' home was not that large.

The door was soon opened to reveal the two Immortals with grim and worried looks on their faces.  That changed however, the moment they saw that Buffy was completely all right.  Joy's face lit up, the way one would expect a worried sick mother's would when she finally saw her child again, safe and sound.  Faith's however was more a strong sense of warm relief, and despite trying to maintain her "dark Slayer" montage, some of it got through her mask for Buffy to see.

"Buffy!" Joyce exclaimed and rushed forward to embrace the girl.  "What happened earlier?  Why did you leave so suddenly?  Why did you go to Mr. Giles' house?  We thought you had gone to Angel's, but then we got the call from Rupert, and I've been worried that something had happened, and…"

"MOM!" Buffy had to shout to get her "mother" to stop invoking Willow's babble mouth.  "I'm okay.  Really.  See?"

"Hey B!" Faith greeted a little too perky for her own good.  "Glad to see you're okay.  Thought we'd have to keep a LATE WATCH out for you."

Buffy's face froze at Faith's less than subtle hint.  Even Cordelia knew that something was up with the way the other two Immortals were behaving and especially the way that Buffy had gone from teenager to ancient warrior in less than a second.  

Buffy whispered so that only the women directly around her could hear before storming into Giles' apartment like a Typhoon, "Thanks for the warning, F.  I've already warned Jonothan.  If things go south, you know what to do."

"What's she mean, you know what to do?  And who's Jonothan?" Cordelia whispered to the other two Immortals.  They just shared a look and turned around to enter the apartment without answering.

*                       *                       *

"HEY GILES!  I'M!  BACK!" Buffy screeched as loud as she could as soon as she was in the door.

The Watcher in question winced and covered his eyes with his hands, rubbing his temples and hoping that his migraine would either go away, or just go ahead and kill him and save him the pain and embarrassment.

"Yes, so it would seem Miss Summers, if that is in fact who you are," a perturbed elderly Englishman huffed at her outburst.

Buffy quirked an interested eyebrow at Quentin Travers and three of his Watcher lackeys, one of which looked like a member of the Watcher's Special Forces, aka one of their assassins.  The other two could have been clones of Giles, what with the uniformed tweed and spectacles on their beak-like noses.  Quentin Travers, however, was unique among all the Watchers.  Simply because, he had 20/20 vision, and he was the cruelest sadist ever to take the Watcher oath in nearly 100 years.  Buffy could testify to that.

"Uh, hi?" Buffy responded back.  Then she cast a confused look in Giles' direction and asked, "Giles', I didn't know you had company.  Should we come back later?  By the way, you are still coming to Mom's dinner tonight?  The one she's having for her old friend?"

The way Buffy said that statement, she could have been any ordinary teenage high schooler paying her favorite Librarian a visit and worried that she was in trouble.  But her words clarified all the message she needed to without emphasizing her tone any at all.

Joyce immediately perked up at the opening her teacher had just given her and seized on it in a second.  "Oh!  That's right!  I have to get some last minute shopping done.  Xander, Willow, would you like to help me out with that?"

"I would!" Cordelia Chase exclaimed, raising her hand.

Xander had a confused and trapped look on his face until he caught the look on Buffy's neutral one and then he slowly got to his feet and nodded to the older woman.  "Sure Mrs. Summers, I'll be glad to be your man for all your shop bag carrying needs," Xander goofed.

Willow, however, kept her seat and seemed to be in a battle of wills, called a staring contest, against Buffy.  The tension rose dramatically as all the people, even the dense and unwelcome Watchers, noted the clashing between the girls.  Finally, Buffy turned her head, a look of "Whatever" on her face, which they all took to mean that Willow could have her way.  The redhead in question just grinned savagely at the Watchers to show her victory.

Joyce quickly dragged the other teenagers, including Oz and Faith, out the door and they were driving away in the Summers' Jeep before anybody could argue any further.  Leaving Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Quentin and his Watchers, alone in Giles' apartment.

The tension remained at a steady climb as Buffy and Quentin traded glaring stares at one another until finally it reached a breaking point when Buffy asked, "What are you people doing here?  I thought you were happy staying in merry ole England, writing down Giles' reports while we hung out on the Hellmouth, risking our lives."

"Well, yes, normally that would be the case," Quentin answered.  "However recently we have noticed some…indiscressions and the Council sent me and my team to investigate.  Now, _Miss Summers_, if that is truly your name, you will kindly come with us and…"

"No you will not!" Willow shouted, getting to her feet and looking like she was about to repeat what she had tried with Alison that morning, but unfortunately there was only one Slayer here this time.

"Willow, calm down," Buffy was beside her friend in an instant.  Then she turned on the Watchers and stared them back into their seats.  "I'm not sure where you get off trying something like this, but I'm not going anywhere I don't want to, and _especially_ with some strange guys that I don't even know.  Now…who are you?" Buffy's question was the same a teenager would ask it.

Quentin then started as he realized that he had not been introduced.  He stood and nodded his head, his voice tight with tension.  "My apologies.  My name is Quentin Travers, and I am the seventh chairman on the Council and their primary representative in this matter.  In short, Miss Summers, I _am_ the Council."

Buffy had a look on her face that both Giles and Willow easily recognized, one of teenage angst and high confusion, one that she often got whenever Giles' was telling her the details about some demon she had already slain.  Only now did they realize, knowing the truth about Buffy, how _great_ an actress she really was.  "Um, Okay," Buffy mumbled.

Quentin, despite the convincing performance, was not entirely convinced.  "Yes Miss Summers, we know your secret, we know that…"

"That I'm a Slayer?  Well duh!  That's _your_ secret!  Now if you're talking about that dream I had about Giles last week…" Buffy babbled.

Quentin suddenly turned a very interesting shade of red.  "I am not talking about you…" suddenly everyone did a double take and Quentin's shout turned to a more deflated, confused tone, "You have dreams about Giles?"

Buffy flushed scarlet and ducked her head.  "It…it's complicated…and…anyway it starts out…"

"Buffy!" Giles suddenly exclaimed, getting to his feet.  Everyone looked at him, surprised.  To save face, Giles quickly began to stutter an excuse, "I…I-I really don't think that Mr. Travers is wanting…to hear about…your dreams, so please…move on."

_'Especially when they're about me,'_ Giles added silently, but Buffy still heard him.

The blonde Slayer grinned cheekily and gave Giles a suggestive wink.  "Don't worry G-man, I wouldn't embarrass you.  Might give you a heart-attack by accident and I'd have to settle on one of those stiff-necks, and you know how long it took me to break in my last Watcher…" Buffy assuaged the Ripper.

"Um, well…yes," Giles mumbled, blushing while the two teenage girls shared a giggle at his reddening response.

"If you are quite through?" Quentin interrupted.

Buffy suddenly got defensive at the interruption, but not as defensive as Giles and Willow knew she could get, just as defensive as the teenager "Buffy" ever got.  "Ok, ok, I can take a hint.  We're being all serious-like now, so…" Buffy settled on the couch next to Willow and looked up at the visiting Watchers, "What's the what?  What brings you boss Watchery types all the way out here from merry ole England?  Am I like due in for an overhaul or something?"

Quentin smirked at the naïve-appearing girl.  "Something like that," he answered rather darkly.

Buffy arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms, and then turned to Willow and mock shivered before muttering, "Brrrrrr!"  Both girls then giggled their heads off.

Any humor or good mood that was present in Quentin's demeanor was quickly evaporated, not that there was that much in the first place.  Quentin then decided to forgo all the dancing around and get right to the heart of why the Watcher's stationed for the Cruciamentum, had made themselves known to the Slayer so early.

"We know you are an Immortal miss Summers.  So drop this naïve charade and be upfront about it.  If it makes it any easier, I'll make it an order," Quentin smirked rather darkly, thinking he had the girl trapped and that much easier to control.

Buffy snorted, "I don't take orders from you, or the Council.  I made that clear with my first Watcher, and I've made it more than clear with Giles.  I'll take…_suggestions_, but I do not take orders…Mr. Travers."  The way the girl said his name, somehow made it seem like the ultimate insult.

"Do not deny the truth!" Quentin shouted.  "You are an Immortal, as is the second Slayer, Faith, and your "mother" Joyce Summers!  We know everything.  Now, what are you going to do about it?"

Buffy shrugged and shared a look with Willow, a look that said, "Well, okay, sure, whatever," and then turned back to the Watchers and shrugged again before saying aloud, "Have a party like it's 1999…oh wait, it is!"  The girls started giggling again, and Giles wasn't far behind, trying desperately to hide the grin forming on his face.

Before Quentin could try again, Buffy took a more serious posture and said, "Look, I don't know where you're getting your information from…Mr. Travers, but if it's true, I'll give a woo hoo, since that means that I might actually live long enough for a normal life, a life that you and your Council seem bent on keeping from me.  Let me tell you something…Mr. Travers.  Living on the Hellmouth means three things.  One, you are taking your own life in your hands just by staying here longer than an hour.  Two, if you live here, pretty much your life is guaranteed weirdness that often classifies very highly as 'Shit'.  And three, if you're the Slayer on the Hellmouth, you're chances of seeing your 25th birthday are pretty much shot to, well, Hell.  So if you are telling the truth…Mr. Travers, I would love being Immortal.  Means that I get to celebrate one more birthday."

"Now if that was all that…the _Council_ has to discuss with us, I think that you are through for the evening…Mr. Travers."  Buffy stood and then gestured toward the door, indicating that they should leave, her face hard.

Quentin stared back into the hard eyes, and even tried to stare her down.  She didn't even flinch, staring straight back at him.  Quentin quickly swallowed his pride and nodded and then gestured to those behind him, and the left.  Before he was through the door however, Quentin turned back to look at their fellow Watcher, Giles.

"Rupert, you can expect us later in the week, to…clear up some last minute matters." That said, the Watchers left, the only sign of their presence, was the enormous relief those left felt.

Giles was about to say something, but Buffy held up her hand to stall him, staring intently at the closed front door.  After maybe a minute, minute and a half, Buffy visibly relaxed and dropped her hand.  "Thank the gods, I thought they'd never leave," Buffy gasped, falling back to the couch as though drained of energy.

"Buffy, are you all right?" Willow asked, concerned for her friend.

Buffy nodded, if a little weakly.  "I'll be fine Wills, don't worry.  So…Giles."  The Watcher could tell from the Eternal Slayer's tone that he was in trouble, if not a little hot water.

"Yes Buffy?" he responded, a little hesitantly.

All of a sudden Buffy's mood and tone did a 180 as she beamed up at him and asked in a too chipper voice, "You _are_ coming to Mom's family dinner tonight, _right_?  She's not taking no for an answer, so _don't_ even _think_ about not coming.  You are _too_ coming, and I don't care how _loud_ you complain or make faces.  And don't make excuses about '_reading_ books to enhance one's _mind_' because Mom won't buy it.  You're coming with me and Willow, right now."

Slowly, his face carefully neutral, Giles nodded his head and then grabbed a book off his desk and his coat and then began toward the door.  "Very well Buffy, since you're so adamant about it…" Giles ducked his head as though ashamed he was letting a teenager boss him around, but the two girls just smiled and stood and followed him to the door.

"By the way Buffy," Willow asked as they were leaving the apartment, "how'd you get here, with Cordelia, if your Mom had the car?"

_*                       *                       *_

Back at the Summers' residence, which now included Faith, who had somehow been made into Buffy's younger sister through some tricky paper work and stuff Buffy had pulled out, Giles and the girls were just pulling up.  Buffy and Willow in Giles' aged Citroen, and the G-man on Buffy's Harley Davidson® Sportster.

Buffy parked the nearly as ancient as she was car, and then quickly showed Giles where to park the Sportster.  Willow went alone into the house, but was soon joined by the others, only to be stopped at the foyer by Xander and another, shorter, youth standing in front of the stairs and glaring at each other.  Willow took a moment to recognize him as Jonothan from school.

"Look _little man_," Xander was saying, trying the intimidation factor against the shorter youth, "I told you I don't care if you have business with Buffy.  You're not staying.  You're not _waiting_.  And you're not leaving a message.  You _are_, however, getting the heck outta here before I show you why half the football team stays away from me."

"Xander?" Willow interrupted, drawing both males attention.  "What's goin' on?"

"Nuthin' Will," Xander swore calmly.  He turned back to the short black-haired youth, "Jonothan here was just leaving."

"I beg to differ Xander," Buffy called out from behind Willow.  The blonde, followed by the redhead, quickly moved into the living room.  "Hi Merlin," she greeted casually to Jonothan as she passed him.

"Ellisif," he greeted back calmly.

Buffy froze.  Slowly, tensely, and undoubtedly dangerously, she turned back to face the boy from school.  He just calmly returned her stare, though with much less threat of murder in his eyes.  Willow and Xander gulped, afraid that Buffy was about to do something…rather rash.  They were also hoping that she _would_ do something rash since it was obvious to them that Jonothan knew Buffy's secret.

"I told you Merlin," Buffy bit out warningly, "_NEVER_ call me that.  I much prefer Buffy.  Or if you insist, use the name I introduced myself to you as."

Jonothan dipped his head in respect as Buffy continued her pace into the living room and dropping her leather jacket and keys onto the coffee table.  "Ofcourse Elizabeth.  My apologies," Jonothan apologized; somehow making the four words sound more regal than anyone else could.

Xander and Willow were at a complete loss.  Willow was just numbly following Buffy as the Eternal Slayer set her things down and turned to go back to the kitchen.  Xander, meanwhile, kept looking back and forth between the short blonde and the shorter greasy-haired intruder.

"Buffy?  Uh, who is this guy?" Xander asked in his 'please help me, and I mean it!' voice.

"He's Merlin Xander," Buffy said almost casually as she walked past the pair.  "You know, Camelot, King Arthur, Excali-"

"Buffy!" Joyce shouted from the kitchen and soon after both she and Faith ran out to greet the Slayer.  "We thought it was you earlier, so we didn't really pay attention.  I'm so sorry Jonothan; I hope Xander didn't insult you.  Would you like to stay for dinner?"

Jonothan smiled graciously but shook his head.  "I owe my own share of apologies Mademoiselle Joy," Jonothan bowed as he apologized, making the blonde Immortal blush some.  "And I am sorry I cannot stay for dinner.  I merely was hoping to speak with Elizabeth over a…sensitive matter.  But from the look on her face, I take it she already knows."

"The Watchers?" Buffy asked with a raised eyebrow.  Jonothan nodded with a grim look on his face.  Buffy nodded back and the mood, whatever it had been before, broke into a relieved depression.

"So Magic Man, why ain't ya stayin' for dinner?" Faith asked the youth.  "You know Joyce has gotten better in the last hundred years, and from the stories I've heard, you couldn't exactly resist her…cookin' from five hundred years ago."

Jonothan smiled fondly at Faith and shrugged his shoulders.  He looked back at Buffy and his face hardened again.  "I will keep to my word Elizabeth, but understand, if _any_ of those Watchers catch my attention in a foul mood…  I will follow through with the oath I made years ago.  Despite my word to you.  Understood?"

Buffy nodded.  "I understand Merlin.  And I don't have any objections.  Particularly where they involve the "leader" of this group, Quentin Travers.  Just keep to the oath I made you take this afternoon, and consider me looking the other way."

Jonathan's face suddenly seemed more natural as he broke out into his typical goofy grin and nodded a bit shyly.  "No prob Buffy," he said, sounding more like the Jonothan from school, before turning to the door.  "Well, I-uh-I gotta get going now.  See you all at school."  He then opened the door, right into his nose.

"Oh!  I'm dreadfully sorry!" Giles apologized the instant he realized he had opened the door onto someone's face.  "Are you all right-uh, I…I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Jonothan assured, holding his nose and aiming it at the ceiling.  "I'll be going now," he said while he maneuvered around Giles and out the door.  The moment the door was closed, he disappeared with the next gust of wind, and reappear on the other side of town in his personal apartment.

"Damn Watchers," Merlin of Camelot cursed as he reset his nose, temporarily being blinded by the sparks of power coming out of it to stop the bleeding.

TBC…


	3. Dinner Conversations

_The Girls (and Boys) of Summer_

_Sequel to Immortal Summers_

**Chapter 3:**

Ten minutes after "Merlin" had left, everyone was sitting at the table, including Amy, Alison, and John Madison who had arrived right after Merlin had left. They were all currently enjoying each other's company, as well as the sight of all the delicious food that Mrs. Summer…uh, Joy had prepared for all of them. Xander and John seemed particularly anxious, out of all those gathered, to begin feasting. If only to ensure that none of the finely prepared food went to waste.

Buffy sat at the end of the table, with Willow, and then Oz, Amy, and Xander on her right, and Faith, Alison, and John on her left. Joyce sat at the head of the table with Giles and Cordelia respectively on her right and left. Joyce was just bringing the last of the dishes to the table before she sat down and they all just kind of sat there for a moment.

The Immortals, Giles, and Willow all then bowed their heads and clasped their hands. The others all scrambled to the same a moment after. Then, the absolute strangest language started to come out of Buffy's mouth, pausing at regular intervals, at which all those that had originally bowed there heads would say a word in the same language before Buffy would continue. That happened three times before Buffy went into a particularly long multi-syllable sentence at the end of which the others said the same word a final time before looking up.

"Okay, I'll ask," Xander interrupted as everyone began to reach for food. "What the heck was that?"

Buffy and Giles looked up at him, the others pointedly ignoring him and grabbing food. "It was a prayer Xander," Buffy answered, as though saying 'Duh!' "You know, with the whole bowing of heads and mumbling a bunch of words and saying them in your head too? Prayer."

Xander shook his head and grabbed a roll and some green beans as they were passed to him before passing them on and looking at the two looking at him and asking again, "I figured that much Buff, but what I meant was what _language_ was that? Cause it clearly wasn't English. It wasn't English was it? Cause if I'm suddenly speaking some whole other language…"

"It was Hebrew Xander, a Jewish prayer. Asking for blessings of prosperity, long life, and thankfulness for the harvest's bounty," Giles explained to the youth.

The look on Xander's face unintentionally caused Faith and a couple others across from him to giggle. "What?" he asked, near-outraged that they found something funny about him that he did not intentionally do to make them laugh.

Faith just shook her head and muttered a "Nothing," before going back to her meal.

Xander took the hint and began to eat what he had put on his own plate, but stopped after the second bite was swallowed and turned to Buffy. "All right _Beth_," Xander dropped his fork with a loud resounding clang onto his glass plate, "Start explaining. Why did you run out after you told us you were in the CIA? And what the hell is Nightwatch and why were you so upset about it being canceled? And come to think of it…why _didn't_ you go to Angel's after you ran out?"

Buffy shrugged, looking at her plate of half-eaten food. "I had some thinking to do Xander. And I did like I said I would do. I went to Giles' to find out if we had any new Big Bad's to take care of. After the past few weeks of strange events, not to mention Trick and Ethan Rayne, I figured that…"

"Don't try and change the subject," Xander snapped. "What is, or was Nightwatch?"

Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Everyone else had already stopped eating and was watching the exchange between the two friends with concern and outside interest.

Finally, after a full minute of tense silence, Buffy opened her eyes and answered Xander's question with a monotone statement. "Nightwatch is a Bureau run Agency funded Anti-terrorist strike force, specializing in demonic and high-risk operations."

John's eyes were the only ones to light up with understanding, as well as quite a bit of shock. "Wow. Now a lot of what you asked me to do in the Bureau makes sense. That's a pretty…high goal Be-Buffy," he corrected, still learning Buffy's name. Then he frowned in concern.

"You said you knew all of the details of the project's cancel already," he pointed out with a frown in his brow, "but the source I received the file from couldn't have known what Nightwatch was, or was planned to be. Something like that…"

"Something like what?" Xander asked, still way behind.

Faith was the one who picked up the answer, a little bit of shock running through her voice as she said it, "Xander, what B's sayin' is that this strike force, which would be trained to go anywhere, do _every_thing, and always get the job done, would be "officially" run and commanded by the Federal _Bureau_ of Investigations, the _FBI_! While "unofficially" the Central Intelligence _Agency_, or _CIA_, would be the ones shelling out the dough to keep them runnin' and up ta speed. Maybe even pulling a few strings behind the curtains. You remember that Keanu Reaves movie? The one about the cold fusion, and the CIA wants it and the FBI is chasin him because of it? I think it's called "_Chain Reaction_"?"

Xander nodded his head, recalling the movie in question.

"Ya know how…_tight_ tensions were between the CIA and FBI guys?"

Xander and a couple others nodded.

"That's B and Angel boy in a back alley after a hefty slaying compared to how it _really_ is between them two," Faith said with utter conviction. Xander and most of the others at the table paled as they thought of the implications.

"And you got them _both_ to agree to that?" Xander asked in pure awe of Buffy's influence after he had thought it over.

Buffy shrugged. "It wasn't difficult. The CIA has deeper pockets than even Bill Gates does, but the FBI is better managed and knows how to use all of it's resources to their fullest abilities, and they work well, sometimes, with other, lower, organizations. CIA is all and only about espionage. So when I was in the Files section, I managed to scrape together enough "dirt" as they say, to get me a person-to-person interview with the **actual** board of directors. After that, I just had to make my case and convince them to consider it. Then came the hard part of getting John here to get me in touch with some of his newer FBI contacts so I could make the same proposal to _those_ Board of Directors. I gotta say, convincing the FBI was easier than those boneheads in D.C."

"Ofcourse it was," John laughed, "They were getting the sweeter deal."

"What I don't understand, though," Oz spoke up for the first time all evening, "is why it's been cancelled if you had all this set up over twenty years ago?"

Buffy blinked in surprise. Then she frowned and did a double take on John. "What file?" she asked suddenly.

"Huh?" he responded.

"You said earlier that you had been given a file by your contact. What file?" Buffy elaborated.

"Oh!" John exclaimed before turning around and pulling a folded manila folder out of his coat, which he had draped on the back of his chair. "I brought it along, anticipating that you might want to have the details anyway. Even though you said you already had them."

Buffy frowned as she accepted the sealed folder and looked at the seal on the front of it. "I do, I mean I should. I have the only complete file on Nightwatch. Anything listed anywhere else would just be codename/full name lists, weaponry and training files, and expense reports, as well as requests for when it came "online" so to speak. And most of that, except for the training files, is at CIA. I don't think the FBI has _any_ other records on the project."

John just shrugged as Buffy opened the folder and began to read through the pages posted inside. The others quietly finished eating while they waited for their esteemed leader to finish reading the data. Five minutes later, Willow, who did not once take her eyes off her best friend, noticed that Buffy's brow was deeply entrenched, though from concern or outright confusion, she couldn't begin to hazard a guess.

Ten minutes after that, Buffy was still staring at the folder, though she hadn't turned the page in over five minutes. It was as though she were reading the same thing over and over again, trying to make it make sense where it defied her sense of logic and order of the universe. Or something like that.

Twenty minutes from Buffy getting the folder, everyone was finished, some almost rushing so they could be filled by the time that Buffy finished making sense of the documentation. The blond Immortal's meal was obviously cold, as she hadn't touched it since touching the document in her hands, but as she _was_ Immortal, nobody thought it prudent enough to demand she eat something.

Finally, Buffy's eyes drifted from the bottom of the left page over to the right, where they froze once again in concentration. It only took her ten minutes to turn to the next page and after that she leafed through much quicker. Once she was done, she simply nodded and made to hand the folder back to John. He reached to take it, but just before his hand would have taken it, she flicked her wrist back, keeping it just out of his reach. John looked at his old friend, confused.

"Nightwatch was not cancelled," Buffy explained in a dead-serious voice. "It's activation protocols were given last week. The Bureau wants its agents inside of a year."

John blinked in shock and surprise. "But…that file…it says…"

"I _know_ what it _says_ John," Buffy stressed, keeping the file still just out of his reach. "It took me a while to remember the code, but it's in there. Nightwatch has been given activation protocol. I know. If the thing really _was_ cancelled, I _would_ have all the details about it inside a week, probably by tomorrow morning. As it is, since the program is now active, there will be three FBI incursion teams arriving in Sunnydale over the next few weeks. Unfortunately…Nightwatch is no where _near_ ready for them."

"Okay, enough with the cryptic spy talk!" Xander exclaimed. "What _is_ Nightwatch and why do you care so much about it Buff! And yeah, I get the whole Bureau and Agency things, but what I mean is, _what_, or rather _who_ is Nightwatch?"

Buffy gulped and finally let John have the file back. She ducked her head slightly and took a long, slow breath. To those that knew her best, Faith, John, and Joyce, they knew she was meditating on her answer, or meditating on not losing her temper.

John answered Xander's question as he replaced the file back where he got it. "An all-purpose strike team? High-risk operations? _Demonic_ class operations? The only possibility is the most obvious one. They're all Immortals, aren't they?" he asked Buffy.

Slowly, drinking her glass, Buffy nodded, not making eye contact with anyone. John seemed to consider her for a moment before he shifted his attention to all of the teenagers around the table, one by one. He paused a bit longer on Oz than the others, but didn't say anything.

"Immortals?" Xander asked. "For real?" Buffy nodded again.

After a moments thought, Xander's face, along with a couple others, lit up and he exclaimed, "Cool! So when do we get to meet this crack shot FBI team of Immortals?"

Buffy's eyes instantly were targeted on the lanky youth. "I told you Xander. Nightwatch is nowhere _near_ ready for what is coming for them. I doubt they're even trained well enough to take on a single Master Vampire, let alone armies of terrorists and full-blown demons. Besides…" Buffy trailed off, looking away from the table.

"Besides what B?" Faith asked, an unheard of note of compassion in her voice.

Buffy closed her eyes and audibly swallowed. Slowly, the eldest Immortal shifted her gaze back to the table, but still avoiding eye contact. "Besides…the fact that I am the "Leader" of Nightwatch…there are at the moment at least two active members of Nightwatch in this very room."

Everyone froze at that comment. Then everyone began to look back and forth, trying to see the two people not sitting at the table. Then they realized, and attention shifted to the three other Immortals at the table. Alison's eyes widened and she started to get to her feet, her face reddening as she turned toward Buffy. Buffy cut off her steam before she was even fully to her feet by saying, "John is not a part of Nightwatch. I wouldn't do that to him without giving him the whole story. Because he knew about our work and the dangers of it. Mom…Faith…you-you guys didn't. Not then anyway."

"So you signed us up for a suicidal _death squad_?!" Joyce snapped out testily.

"That's not what…"

"B, ya coulda at least _told_ us something!" Faith added to the recriminations.

"No Faith! I couldn't!" Buffy exploded in the dark Slayer's face, tears beginning to leak out her eyes.

"I couldn't tell _anyone_! That was part of the arrangement. Nobody but the directors and myself were to even _know_ about Nightwatch until _after_ its activation and accomplishment of its first assignment. If there was ever any compromise…even to the future members to any point _before_ activation…those contingencies were…taken care of. Permanently."

Buffy looked across the table and met both Faith's and Joyce's eyes. "They know about Immortals, they'd had to, to accept my proposal. If I had told you, or anyone else before I received this confirmation…I'd be seeing your heads beside my pillow when I woke up tomorrow morning."

Faith had a brief flash of sympathy cross her face, but it was soon replaced with the look of hurt and anger that Buffy's announcement had caused. Joyce's expression held no flicker. Just the constant look of anger and betrayal. 

"How could you do this Buffy?" she asked, her voice showing as clearly as her face her emotional state at the moment. "You know how I feel about…about _this_ kind of thing! Even if your reasons were pure, _Strike-forces_ are only meant to do three things; kill, eliminate, and infiltrate. No matter the government, the cause, or the place, or even the _time_ Buffy! It's always the same!"

Buffy shook her head resolutely. "No Joy, it's not the same as the Inquisition…"

"Like _hell_ it isn't!" Joyce shouted and jumped to her feet, knocking the chair she was in to fall back and crash into the chest behind it.

Inquisition Trials, Confederation of Spain: 1482 AD 

The sky was turning dark. Yet there was at least several more hours before sunset, all knew. When they saw the dark clouds, and where they came from, all automatically crossed themselves and went on about their business as though night were coming early. Elisabeth and Alegria were walking along the filthy street in clothes better suited to the dying beggars and thieves lying alongside and sometimes in the middle of the street.

Even though to an outside observer, they looked like any other mother/daughter couple walking along the road, save the clothes of rags and stench of not bathing in several days to a few weeks, there remained the fact that they obviously weren't from around these parts. Elisabeth, a small wisp of a girl with filthy dirt-encrusted golden blond hair, was walking huddled next to "her mother", Alegria, who stood a good head taller, though her hair was not quite as vivid, was obviously the same color as Elisabeth's.

They were walking rather hurriedly on the side of the roads, trying to be invisible, which in itself made them stand out against the backdrop of the city. So when the parade of horseback soldiers came around the corner, and they froze, dashing into the nearest dark corner, they drew the very attention they had been seeking to avoid all along.

Tomas de Torquemada, the cardinal "leader", if such a word could be used in connection with such a man, of the purification of the city. The man responsible for, and in charge of, the Spanish Inquisition. Along with about a half dozen "royal" guards, each carrying long javelin spears, over 7 feet tall. Torquemada, on horseback with the guards as almost a wall of protection around him, drove quickly down the street, until he saw the flash of movement of the mother and daughter dive for cover from sight in a nearby open alleyway. Smiling in his "charismatic" way when he realized that it was two women, he drew the Captain guard's attention to the alley, who then commanded two of his men to go and check it out.

While the two went off, Torquemada and the others stopped their procession in the middle of the street, the man alone driving a wide berth from the crowd on the street, the guards only multiplying it. Suddenly there was a loud commotion and as Torquemada and everyone else on the street turned towards the source, they saw one of the guards go flying out of the alley to land on the other side of the street, very shortly followed by the second.

'_What in the Lord's name…!'_ the cardinal cursed silently as he motioned the other guards forward.

It proved pointless as in the next moment the two women he had seen dive for cover expose themselves, in more ways than one, right in front of the guards. The shorter one, Elisabeth, was in the lead, while the older and more healthy looking woman, Alegria, stood support directly behind her. Both were wielding swords.

"Just try it you pigs!" Elisabeth shouted at the guards in the local tongue.

"You are hereby charged with heresy," Tomas de Torquemada was the next to speak, almost casually as it were. "Captain, arrest them. Injure them if you must, but I want them alive for their trial."

The Captain, who hated his job almost as much as the man he was forced to protect, merely nodded and moved his men forward in a standard effort to arrest those who resisted. Usually that was everybody.

"Elisabeth, we can't kill them. They're innocent, only following orders of that madman there," Alegria pleaded with her teacher in a language no one on that street knew or could recognize, a German dialect the two had picked up just prior to their visit to the Spanish Empire. For all the locals knew, who had scattered out of the way as Torquemada was making his accusation, they were speaking devil tongue.

"Don't you think I realize that Joy!" Elisabeth snapped. "Unfortunately, one cannot always keep their hands clean of innocent blood. And their blood is no more innocent than that monster's there. Even if they're unwilling, they still do it. It might be by his command, but it's their hands that do the dirty work. I'll keep the casualties as small as I can, but I will not make you any promises, my _student_."

"That's all I ask, Teacher." Then the guards moved in.

_* * *_

An hour later, Elisabeth and Alegria were in the Inquisition's headquarters, both chained to a stone wall, and both naked, having been stripped as soon as they had been forced into this room. Then, more on principal than reason, the two were beat before finally being chained up. After that, they had been left mostly alone, save for the vermin that shared their cell, and the screams that echoed throughout the entire building.

"You should have let me kill them," Elisabeth snapped at Alegria in the younger Immortal's native language, Celtic Gaelic. The older Immortal had been silent since before they had been brought here.

"There is one thing that I appreciate out of the Christian's religion Buffy, it is the philosophy of turn the other cheek. It agrees with my own personal philosophy." Alegria temporarily reverted to the name she had first known her teacher by.

"They're going to burn us you know, as soon as they see what we are, or at least what we aren't. Trust me, its not a nice way to die." Elisabeth told her student.

"Guess I'll get some experience then, huh?" Alegria muttered as the door finally opened. It was more guards, who immediately stepped forward, all of them with a sour expression on their faces. Elisabeth figured it out first, and gulped. They had been beat, and bore no bruises.

Unfortunately, the guards only unlocked the woman that would one day be known as Joyce Summers. Realizing what was going to happen, Elisabeth immediately started struggling and trying to get out of her chains.

"What's happening?" Alegria asked in Spanish once the guards started to take her toward the door. She was soon covered with an un-dyed sackcloth and taken from the room, the door locked behind them, leaving Elisabeth with the vermin.

"NO!" Elisabeth shouted, straining every one of her mystically enhanced muscles. No matter though, even after the chains would break, she would be too late. Long before that though, she would be haunted by Alegria's screams and pleas of mercy.

The Inquisitors had her for three hours before Elisabeth finally broke free of her confinement and made her way to where Alegria was, slaughtering every guard that got in her way.

After they escaped, they ran, and stayed on the run for over three weeks, trying to go under the notice of the Death squads, the personal soldiers of the Inquisition, those that brought "sinners" to the Inquisitors. The men of these squads might have been as innocent as the people they brought in, but they were just following orders.

Summer Home Sunnydale, California: 1999 AD 

Joyce Summers was glaring accusingly at her teacher of the past thousand years, her chair slammed back against the wall behind her. "I know I don't have to remind you what they did to me in that chamber, and those soldiers that brought us there were not the ones doing it, but the worst of it came in the weeks after, the constant hiding and running. I will _never_ be a part of a death squad Buffy!"

Almost as though she were struggling with herself, Buffy slowly got to her feet and met Joyce's glare. "I'm not asking you to be a part of a death squad Joyce. I'm asking you to be the information officer for an assassination squad. _That_ is what its really all about. Our targets might be demons or entire terrorist groups, but it doesn't change the fact that what we are _really_ doing is hunting down evil and taking them out!"

"And the torturing? I noticed you haven't exactly forgotten your own gifts with it," Joyce sarcastically snapped. Buffy squinted her eyes dangerously at her "mother" before finally answering back.

"I can still whore just as well as I had to as well. In case you forgot, one of the things that _my_ teacher taught me was how to keep my skills, _all_ of them as fresh as the day that I mastered them. I taught you and Faith similar methods, but thankfully you've never had to go through what the first 2,000 years of my life were like. You think _you_ had it bad Joy? Where the hell do you think I picked up my "torture skills", huh? Certainly not from the Inquisition!"

During all of this, everyone still at the table was looking back and forth between the Immortals like the insults were hollow white balls at a ping-pong tournament.

"I know that Ares must have…" Joyce tried to placate the older Immortal.

"Oh, I learned them long before I met _Ares_," Buffy growled. "Think a bit further southeast than there. Starts with the letter A in the English language, oh and lets not forget that the rulers of the country were called sheiks!"

Joyce suddenly paled and took a faltering step back from the table. Even John and Faith looked unwell. It was Willow who was actually worse than Joyce. "I…remember that…" she trailed off.

"I'm going to bed, thanks for the meal Joy. And John, sorry for being a rude host, but, heh, you know me!" Buffy shouted as she stormed out of the room, and then out of the house, presumably to patrol.

"She hasn't changed at all, has she?" John asked his former wife.

Faith gave him an incredulous look. "What made you think she _would_ if she hasn't in over a thousand years? According to Mom over there, B's still _exactly_ the same that she was when they first met." Faith jerked her thumb in the direction of the still standing Joyce.

The Immortal blonde finally seemed to snap out of her daze that Buffy's tantrum had put her into and she picked up her chair and sat down at the table once more. She finished her meal in silence.

'_Joyce?'_ Faith asked telepathically, looking at the woman with her eyes as well.

'_Not now Faith,'_ was the crisp reply without a glance upward.

Faith finally sighed and then picked up her dishes, having been devoid of food for several minutes. Willow and Xander soon joined her. All three of them walked into the kitchen, but didn't say anything for the few minutes it took Faith to rinse all three plates and put them in the dishwasher.

Xander was the one to break the silence. "So she hasn't changed in over a thousand years? Does that mean she's always been as good an actress?" he asked bitterly.

"She's better than she lets on," Faith said neutrally, leaning on the island. "I've seen B become something neither of you could ever recognize, whether that be a total A class Bitch or a total raving psychopathic killer, complete with berserker rage. What she is in everyday life, when she's just being 'Buffy', near as I've ever been able to tell, that's as close to the _real_ girl as anyone can get. The little girl that was raised in a village in southern Norway, next to a big lake with a rock island in the middle of it, the one that was happy and loved…and then betrayed."

Faith stopped talking for a moment, letting the two who considered themselves Buffy's closest and best friends, absorb what she had said so far. "I don't care how much you want to help, or how much you "deserve" or even _think_ you deserve out of your relationship with Buffy Xander, but allowances have to be made. For some things. Hell, I've done things that I'm not proud of. I've killed human beings, and not just soldiers in a war. I've even been responsible for the death of countless innocents. B…she's a billion times three thousand and a load of odd years worse than what I've been through. You think you know her? Hell, the only one that can honestly say that is either Joy, or Wills here, since you got the memory thing."

"Faith is right Xander," Willow said without missing a beat. "Buffy has done things, horrible things that you might think you would never be able to forgive her for. But I saw, with my minds eye, every detail of those things and more, and I still call Buffy my best friend, and I love her just as much as I did before. Hell, I love her even more _because_ of the things she's done, not to speak of what she's _been_ through! The world isn't Black and White anymore, it never was. It's an ugly shade of red, darker than the color of dried blood, and the only way to make any sense of anything is to hold on to what you believe in and fight for what you believe or even know to be right."

Xander ducked his head for several moments, silent as he absorbed his friends' words. Finally he looked up, a look of pain and deep understanding in his eyes. "You just told me all this so I wouldn't lose my temper at Buffy storming out, didn't you?"

"Wasn't that the whole point of coming back here?" Faith asked with a sly grin.

Xander shook his head, his expression unchanging. "I wanted to ask if there was anything we could do for her."

"Only be there for her when she comes to us Xan," Willow answered sadly, rubbing her friend's back. "As much as it hurts, that's all we can do for her."

_* * *_

The Slayer didn't even know what she was doing. She used to think she knew, but…not right now. Joyce's accusations hit a lot closer than 'home' ever could, but at the same time they were easily deflected off the Eternal Slayer's "golden shield". It was practically the only thing that kept her emotions in check any more.

All Shaolin and Shambalah training went out the window as the Slayer stormed down the streets of the Hellmouth. Anything demonic, _especially_ vampires were eradicated faster than they knew to run. She didn't waste time on pain. She just wanted to take out as many threats as she possibly could as fast as she could.

And wouldn't that just be the perfect time for the serum to kick in?

The vamp wasn't exactly a newbie, but he wasn't counting centuries just yet. Funny thing about the serum the Watchers gave out during the Cruciamentum, it weakened her to the point of when she really was just 16 years old.

So no matter that she had lived for 3000 plus years,almost 4000, no matter that she was master of more martial arts and fighting forms than a number cruncher could count, not even that she was in prime conditions so that even without her "Slayer powers" or anything like that she could bench press her motorcycle (only once but it's the feat that counts). All she knew was that one minute she was taking her frustrations out on the vamp, and the next she was struck by a wave of dizziness and weakness so profound, she, an immortal warrior that had had it drilled into her since *before* she was immortal to _never_ show any kind of weakness to her enemy, that she stumbled and nearly fell to her knees. In fact it was only due to that philosophy being drilled into her that she didn't just fall over.

The vamp, seeing this, grinned and immediately went to take advantage. He took a few steps forward, but by the time Buffy had regained enough of herself to steady her balance, the vamp felt a sharp and hollow pain in its chest, and the next thing it knew was oblivion.

Surprised, but certainly not ungrateful, Buffy looked up to see who her rescuer was. She smirked when she saw Angel standing there with a quirky grin on his face. "My hero," she sarcastically intoned as she walked over to a nearby bench.

"Nice to see you too," Angel bit back. Buffy noticed he was wearing the Cladagh ring, the crown facing inwards on his right hand, ring finger.

"Glad you're still wearing it," Buffy said.

Angel held up his hand and looked at the ring. "I haven't…tested it out yet."

"Good. Don't. Not yet at least. I'm not going to be at top strength for a few days, obviously."

"Is something wrong?" Angel asked after several minutes' silence.

Buffy looked him over for several seconds, then closed her eyes and sighed aloud. "I had a fight with my mom," she answered, depressed.

"Somehow I don't think that just because you and Joyce had an argument, you're suddenly letting vampires that even Xander could take out almost kill you," he argued.

"Oh. That," Buffy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she walked over and sat down on a bench.

"What's 'that'?" Angel asked.

Buffy sighed and instead leaned back until she was staring at the starry sky. "It's nothing," she sighed. "Look, I'm just having a really bad day. Can we not talk about... anything right now?"

"Yeah, sure," Angel quickly agreed and sat down next to the Immortal.

* * *

Back at Buffy's home, Xander and Willow were getting ready to leave, however with Buffy still not home, they were reluctant to do so. And not just because it only left one Slayer to walk them home.

"You know, Joyce could drive us, and I'm sure that Faith knows how to ride Buffy's motorcycle, and I still can't believe that Buffy owns a motorcycle!" Xander exclaimed.

"X-man, the Watchers... they be watchin'," Faith said to his exclamation. "Until we know they're gone, we have to stick to normal behavior, and that includes walking home. Even if it would be a better idea to drive. Not to mention quicker."

Joyce, who she had been looking at as she spoke, just gave the Immortal Slayer a glare and a slight shake of her head. Since she had been the one to insist, in the first place, the pattern of "normal behavior", there really wasn't anything the teenagers, or equivalent, could do about it.

"The only one getting a ride at the moment is Cordelia to her car in the school parking lot," Giles interceded as he and the high school debutant made ready to leave themselves. "Although I can't fathom why you would..."

"Save it G-man," she interrupted him with her boyfriend's favorite ribbing nickname of the Watcher. Without another word being said, they both walked out the door and left.

"You know," Oz said as he walked in from the dining room, where he had helped Joyce finish with cleaning off the table from dinner, "I do have a van."

Faith, Xander, and Willow all turned their gazes on the matriarch Summers, backed up by Oz. With a heavy sigh, and wishing they would just all wait for Buffy to return, the second oldest Immortal of the household just rolled her eyes and replied, "Fine. But Faith, I still want you to go with them."

Faith started slightly as she suddenly realized, and by the look on Willow's face so had she, that the reason for Faith escorting them all home was not for _their_ protection, but _Faith's_. After all, what would stop the Watchers from kidnapping her and making a claim that she was taken by vampires or maybe even demons.

Grateful for the blessing that was her elders, Faith just nodded her acceptance and joined the other teenagers as they filed out to Oz's van, which was on the curb, having been moved in the transition from the Summer's home, to Giles' apartment, and back again.

For some reason, the street had filled up in the late afternoon, but now, in the late night it was dead quiet and very empty. But because of earlier, Oz had been forced to park on the other side of the street and several houses down.

As they walked along the deserted street to the lone, zebra-striped van, Faith couldn't shake the feeling that from the moment they opened the door on 1630 Revello Drive, they were being watched. And not the harmless, neighborhood nosy lady peeking through her vinyls, but the kind of watching that only a predator, and a ruthlessly dangerous one at that, could do. But Faith's Slayer sense wasn't picking up anything even remotely demonic, which was as much a surprise and shock as the hairs standing up on the back of her neck were.

She couldn't even pinpoint where or what was watching them, but all the same, she just couldn't shake the feeling. Despite trying to even as they all filed into the van.

Later on, Faith would wonder about, and curse, her luck.

The moment that the engine turned over, after two almost-starts, the van exploded.

* * *

"Thanks for the ride Giles, I can get home safe from here," Cordelia thanked the Watcher, who treated her kinder and more like a daughter than her Immortal watching Watcher of a father.

"All right Cordelia, have a good night, and be safe," Giles replied back as he watched her walk the short distance to her car. Once he saw her open the door and nothing grabbed her or leaped out to kill the cheerleader, he breathed a sigh of relief and watched for another moment as she got into the car and closed the door. After that, he turned around and drove the rest of the way back to his apartment in peace.

Cordelia, always a safe driver, was just reaching behind her with to grasp her seatbelt when she suddenly heard a loud crashing sound, very close, followed by a very quick and very soft 'splat'. A moment and a half later, she sat straight in her car as she tried to wonder why her head was hurting so much, and why her vision was going red and black.

Half a moment after that, glassy eyed, and with a hole the size of a quarter in the back of her head, right where her skull met the neck, Cordelia Chase slumped forward onto the steering wheel of her car, dead.

The only sign of the cause of death was the broken rear windshield, which before it fell to small pieces of glass, had a small hole blown through it. The body as well as the car, since it was a Friday, was left in the car and overall forgotten.


	4. Morbid Revelations

**Chapter 4:**

Buffy and Angel were about to head in the direction of her house, when suddenly a vampire leaped out of the bushes. But instead of attacking, apparently it had recognized either Buffy or Angel, or both of them, and took off in the opposite direction. Not willing to let it get away, or say uncle to the chemical working its way through her body, Buffy, with Angel right behind, gave chase.

It must have been desperate to get away, because it took nearly an hour before the duo finally caught up and dusted the vampire. By now, they were in the school parking lot, and Buffy curiously noted that there was still a car there, despite it being well past midnight.

Suddenly, as they were about to resume their trek to the Summer's home, Angel stopped and physically stiffened.

"What is it?" she asked, looking around and extending her own senses, inadequate as they were for the moment.

"I smell blood. A lot of it." Angel answered, sounding more worried and afraid than he should have been.

"Where?" Buffy asked, looking through the dark.

Suddenly, _she_ stiffened, her eyes very wide and her entire being was locked into a state of overwhelming fear. Angel could feel it. Slowly, she turned and stared right at the lone car in the parking lot. Cordelia's car she now realized with a sinking gut of dread.

"Oh god, please no. Not yet!" she cried, the tears beginning to fall as she raced forward as fast as she could for the car.

A few meters away, Angel knew beyond all doubt this was the source of the blood he smelled. And he also knew whose blood it was. Unfortunately, so did Buffy.

"Oh god, please not yet," she was mumbling as she slowly approached the driver-side door, and opened it...

To reveal a very much dead Cordelia with the back of her head blown off.

Instead of breaking down even further, like he had expected of her, like he felt like doing himself, Buffy knelt beside the corpse and slowly leaned her back upright in the seat. Blood came from every hole in the dead girl's head, one of her eyes was so red that Angel was sure blood had leaked into the organ, while the other was glassy and cold, stuck open in the moment of death.

"Buffy..." Angel tried to comfort her, but she shrugged off his attempts, instead paying far more attention to Cordelia than he thought she should have been.

"Shut up. Leave me alone and let me concentrate here," she ordered. There were still tears falling down her face, but she was obviously not someone mourning.

Closing her eyes, and regulating her breathing as though meditating, Buffy placed her right hand over Cordelia's forehead and her left over the heart. Then, in an amazement of wonder, Angel witnessed something that he had never seen and never thought he'd ever see in all of his 200 years of eternally damned un-life.

He witnessed the resurrection of someone who was definitely dead. And not a demonic resurrection, no, if anything, heavenly is the best and only way to describe it.

Within five minutes, Cordelia suddenly arched forward, like the body had been shocked, gasping with breath for the first time in over three hours.

Three seconds after that, she started screaming. Buffy immediately started trying to restrain her and and calm her down. "It's OK Cordelia! It's OK! It's over, you're all right! Cordelia! You're all right, you're OK, everything is OK! Please, calm down!"

After a couple more seconds of struggling and screaming, Cordelia finally quieted down and sat there, gasping in her car. "Buffy?" she finally said as she recognized the person still holding her. "Wha—what's going on? Where am . . ." she trailed off as she saw the blood in front of and on her as well as the damage to her car.

For a moment, it looked like she would pass out or start screaming again. Instead, in a display of remarkable emotional control, unheard of before in the May Queen, she turned to Buffy and Angel and asked in a somewhat shaky voice, "What happened?"

Buffy hesitated, and looked like she wasn't going to say anything, while Angel just had a completely baffled look on his. Finally, Buffy answered, "You died Cordelia. You were killed as the evidence more than shows you."

"Wait a sec, wait just one second!" Cordelia interrupted the Immortal Slayer. "If I died, why am I not _still_ dead? Huh? Answer me that oh all knowing one!"

"You're an Immortal. Like me, like Faith, like Joy. You're one of us now," Buffy told her straight up.

Queen C's complexion suddenly matched very close to Angel's, maybe a few degrees paler actually. Then she took another look at all the blood in front of her and even on her. Her skin went from pale white to a sharp green in two seconds flat.

"I need to get out of here," she said hurriedly and Buffy and Angel got out of her way as she ran for the bushes and started puking.

Buffy looked a little green herself, but she quickly got to her feet and turned to Angel, a harder edge than he was used to seeing in her eyes as she faced him. "Watch her. Get her back to my place as soon as she can be moved. Let her argue all she wants, just get her to my place." She started to walk off, but Angel grabbed her arm, halting her.

"Wait a second, where are you going?" he demanded.

"She was killed. The assassin could still be out there. I'm going to look for them. Get her back to my place. I'll meet you there in an hour," she promised.

"But, wait, what about . . . you know?"

"I can handle it," Buffy hurried off into the night.

Buffy didn't find Cordelia's killer. But she did find the evidence left behind by the killer. A small note with a very simple symbol stitched onto it. The CIA wanted it's Black Ops team, now.

Once she had the note, Buffy knew she couldn't waste anymore time looking for the "activation team", the CIA elite that had been sent in to "activate" Nightwatch. And since Nightwatch, was at the moment 40 pre-Immortals, and now counting Cordelia, 60 fully active Immortals, that meant an assassination team.

Buffy ran as fast as her quickly weakening muscles could move her, taking her to her street and where her home was. Halfway there she caught up with Angel and Cordelia who were only walking, the latter grumbling the whole way.

"Shut up and start running. I'll explain on the way," Buffy shouted as she ran past them, only slightly out of breath. No slayer powers or not, she was still a nearly 4000 year old Immortal.

Grumbling a little louder, Cordelia started to run after the ancient immortal and the souled vampire.

Thankfully, Buffy's house wasn't too far from the school and it was only a matter of minutes before the three worried immortals arrived on Revello Drive. Unfortunately, for Buffy, all of her fears were realized in that one moment when they saw the shrinking flames and rising smoke coming from a charred heap that used to be a zebra-striped van.

Buffy couldn't take another step once she had identified what the vehicle was. Cordelia and Angel beside her only stared themselves, Cordelia trying to regain control of her breathing, Angel sympathizing for what the woman that he loved was being forced to go through tonight.

"What do you think happened?" Angel asked the ancient Immortal, trying to keep a level and objective head. He needed, they all needed Buffy to keep her head, in more ways than one, right now. Because it looked like either the Watchers, which he had heard about from Willow when she had called earlier that afternoon, or somebody else was targeting their group and killing them all off. If not one by one, as with Cordelia, then possibly all together, which the vampire feared had just happened.

Buffy, despite the circumstances, was showing no more emotion beyond the dried tears on her cheeks. Her face was a stilled-mask, her eyes steady and unburdened with emotion, and she wasn't moving. She just kept staring at the wreckage of the still smoldering automobile, like she expected something to happen that she could then react to.

Within a few moments more, it happened.

It started as a small little buzzing sensation at the back of her neck, but then it didn't go away, and in fact it was getting more powerful and spreading across her entire nervous system. Pretty soon it felt like her entire body was _buzzing_ like she was a flea in the middle of a percussion drum at a Military Rock Concert. Cordelia cried out from the overload she began to interpret as pain, grasping her head as she fell to her knees, begging, screaming for it to stop.

Buffy just frowned as she kept staring at the wreckage, and then her head moved, almost on its own accord, about 45 degrees to the right where four charred bodies lay hidden in the darkness of the night grass. Faster than the others expected, Buffy raced forward across the street to the bodies. Angel decided that for the moment she could take care of herself, but quite obviously Cordelia could not.

Being gentle, he hurried to pick the still screaming girl up and carried her across the street to join Buffy. That was when he saw three more miracles that he would never tire of seeing.

Faith's back arched as she gasped in breath, and then let out a series of coughs, slowly rolling onto her side before even trying to sit up. When she finally could, she looked up and saw Buffy, Angel and Cordelia standing around her, the former with grave concern etched into every facet of her face.

"B?" Faith croaked, swallowing some to get moisture back in her mouth before trying to talk again. "B? What the hell happened? That was an explosion!"

Buffy just nodded, and turned her attention to the others on the ground beside Faith.

The Dark Slayer slowly got to her feet, making sure she was fully healed and steady before standing up. Then she looked over at Cordelia and Angel, and the moment Faith and Cordelia's eyes met, the cheerleader stopped screaming and all traces of pain left her, and the tiny buzz that had still been in her brain finally dissipated from Faith's consciousness.

Realizing what this meant, Faith nearly cried out with shock herself. Only her century of experience allowed her to school her features properly enough to keep it to just staring for a while, a small look of shock on her face.

"What the hell was that?!" Cordelia demanded to know.

Before she could get her answer, she cried out again, holding her head and closing her eyes in pain, even if it wasn't as powerful as the first time. Whether that was cause she was more used to it or whatever caused it wasn't as powerful this time around, Cordelia didn't know, but to her it didn't make any difference. Pain was pain.

Faith flinched, and finally looked down herself, seeing Xander and Willow strewn out beside her . . . until the long time friends, together, breathed in gasping for breath, their backs arching slightly as their nervous systems jump-started. As with Faith, after the initial gasp, they spent several moments coughing on their sides. Faith, seeing as Cordelia was still incapacitated, went to Xander as Buffy went to Willow and the Slayers helped the new Immortals sit up.

"B-b-Buffy?" Willow asked, surprised to see the blonde holding her. And even more surprised to see herself covered in black soot and her clothes burned. Taking in her surroundings, she saw Faith helping Xander, both of them in much the same condition she was. Angel was standing over Cordelia, looking helpless as the socialite cowered on the ground, holding her head and sounding like she was in immense pain.

It was at that moment that Willow recognized the buzzing she herself was feeling. The last time she had felt anything like this, she had been magically reliving the many lifetimes of an ancient Immortal. But that was under a spell, and this was most obviously reality . . . and here she was, feeling other Immortals . . . herself.

"Oh goddess!" Willow cried out, drawing everyone's attention, even Cordelia, who showed relief after meeting Willow's eyes. Sensing a pattern, Cordelia turned to her boyfriend and met his eyes, and both visibly relaxed.

"Buffy! What happened? I . . . I can _feel_ Immortals! I . . . I can feel _you_, and Faith, and . . . Xander and Cordelia . . ." Willow trailed off, realization to her own question coming over her as she lay in the grass at night.

"Willow," Buffy called, shaking her redheaded friend out of her inner musings long enough to get her attention. "We need to get indoors. Now. I'll explain in my house. Let's move."

"Wait, where's Oz?" Willow demanded as the Gold Slayer pulled her up to her feet.

Faith tensed and Buffy just stopped for a minute, before slowly turning in the direction of the now smoldering van. It didn't take a super genius to figure out that she was silently answering Willow's question.

In a highly unusual display of emotion, Cordelia choked back a sob and ran into Xander's arms, who was fighting back tears himself, while Angel and Faith both bowed their heads in sadness.

"NOOOOOOO!" Willow cried and tried to run to the van, but Buffy stopped her, holding her almost easily, despite the blonde being at less than half power that night.

"NOOO! NO, NO, NO, NONONONONO!! NOOOOOOO!!!!" Willow screamed again, trying to fight her way out of Buffy's arms, but she was too weak, and ended up just crying in the blonde's arms.

"Let's get inside," Buffy said after a few minutes after Willow had stopped screaming. Angel helped her carry Willow while Cordelia and Xander mostly leaned on each other as they walked along, and Faith just brought up the rear, scowling at the wreck of the van, and the darkness in general.

"What happened?" Joyce demanded to know as she slowly and deliberately helped to clean up Xander and Willow. Faith was still upstairs taking a shower, but at least she knew and had experience with getting the traces of an explosion out of her skin.

"The Agency wants it's team," Buffy answered coldly. "My guess is that there's a new director, or maybe it's somebody working without the consensus of the Board hoping to get either a promotion or more power of some kind. More than likely the true nature of Nightwatch has been covered up and forgotten, even by those that helped design it. They probably think that Nightwatch is some sleeper assassination team, and only by putting the 'sleepers' in life-threatening situations can the programming be activated. Obviously, that ain't the case."

"I figured that much out on my own. I mean what _happened_?" Joyce demanded once more, sounding like an exasperated parent rather than a thousand year old Immortal who was used to the spy game.

"Oh," Buffy blushed and ducked her head sheepishly. "Cordelia was shot in the back of the head by a sniper, I couldn't tell what caliber because the bullet was a self-destruct and the hole in her head had already healed by the time I got to her. And somebody put a bomb in Oz's van. That's what happened."

"Then how do you know it's not Wilkins, or the Watchers?" Joyce asked as she scrubbed fiercely at Willow's neck, who wasn't really moving or doing much of anything. Since getting inside, Willow had finally cried herself out and now she was just numb, not reacting or fighting anything that was happening to her, and hardly even blinking, except whenever someone said Oz's name, because then she blinked rapidly for several seconds and a few tears leaked out, but then she went back to numbness.

Buffy, in reply to Joyce's question, just handed her the note she had found where the assassin had shot Cordelia from. Staring at it, Joyce frowned, but had to agree with Buffy's assessment of the situation.

"So what do we do now?" the blonde was asked.

"We have a number of options actually," Buffy answered, sounding surprised herself. "One, all of us get out of here until the newbies are trained and we can come back, stop Wilkins, close the Hellmouth, and protect ourselves from any further assassination attempts. Two, you and Faith get the kids out of here while I take care of the Agency team, _and_ Wilkins. And three, we pretend everything is normal and stick to our original plans for being here on the Hellmouth."

"Original plan?" Xander asked, keeping up with the conversation as best he could.

Buffy shrugged, "Maintain a guardianship over the Hellmouth until it can be sealed again, or destroyed even. If that's possible. React to each threat as it comes and respond accordingly. Oh, and do the whole Immortal thing of taking care of and teaching any pre-Immortals we came across."

"You knew."

The statement, while soft, came from the cowed redhead. Her head was lowered, but her body was perfectly still, despite her recent traumas.

"You knew," she said a little louder, now looking up and glaring at Buffy with a fierce anger in her eyes. Those eyes had last been directed at Alison Madison the last time Buffy had seen them at all. To have them pointed at her was a sobering experience for the ancient Immortal.

"You _knew_ we were Immortal! You knew that Oz wasn't! You _KNEW_ that these people would be coming here and what they would do! _YOU KNEW!!_" Willow shouted.

Xander wasn't exactly with the giving of sympathy, Buffy knew, so she didn't even try to break her stare with Willow. "Yes. So did Joy. So did Faith. So did Merlin, the little nerd that you've known as Jonathan for who knows how many years. As for these people . . . no. I didn't, I couldn't possibly know about them . . ."

"LIAR!!" Willow screamed.

Faith came running down the stairs at Willow's shouts, still only half dressed in sweatpants, pulling a tank top over her bra as she entered the dining room. "What's going on?" she asked the room.

She was ignored as Buffy bristled slightly at Willow's words. "I am not lying Willow. I wouldn't do that to you at this time. I _couldn't_ know what's going on right now. I had it all planned. After graduation we were going to tell all of you about Immortals and that you were pre-Immortal, and then we would have _given you a choice_! Whether or not to trigger your Immortality, or to wait, or to protect you from ever dying so you could die of old age without ever having to worry about the things an Immortal worries about. And I think you know me well enough, _Willow_, that I'm telling the truth and not lying."

"Says the great actress," the redhead snapped, becoming angrier by the second.

Buffy recoiled as if she had been slapped. Then her face clouded over for several long seconds, switching emotions so fast that no one could keep track, until she finally stilled her features and silently walked around Willow and away from the dining room.

"That was below the belt Red," Faith tried to defend her teacher without taking sides.

"They killed Oz," Willow started to wail again, and Xander immediately embraced her and held her steady as she cried.

Even though Xander was comforting her, and she was clearly distraught, even to the point where Faith's own emotional armor would crack, the Immortal Slayer could not let the both of them go on thinking that Buffy just didn't care, which is what they were thinking, she could see it in their minds thanks to her own Slayer powers.

"Yeah, they did," Faith said matter-of-factly to Willow. "And don't you think it's eating the rest of us up inside? What the hell do you think it's doing to B? Huh Red? You know her about as well, if not better than me and Joy put together, so you can probably come up with an answer that's pretty close. How is Oz's death affecting her right now? How is you, Xand here, and even Queen C becoming Immortal, on her watch, in one night, how is that affecting her? Answer me that Red."

"Look, just back off!" Xander got up to enforce the issue, but was stopped when Willow grabbed his hand and told him, "No. Don't. She's right."

Although she was still a bit weepy, Willow was much more in control of her facilities than she had been since reviving. "She's beating herself up inside, even worse than what I was saying to her. Even worse than the things Allison said to her," Willow answered Faith's question. "She's hurting just as bad as I am, not because of how she felt about him, but because he was a friend and how it's hurting the rest of us. And she's promising herself in between all the recriminations and pain, that she won't let it happen to the rest of us. No matter what."

"OK, so why'd you go and make her feeling worse?" Faith shot out, hardly even phased by the emotional speech.

Willow actually looked up to meet Faith's glare as she answered, too calmly, "Because she deserves it, and a whole lot more."

There was silence after Willow's statement for several long moments, until Joyce walked in and asked her, "And what makes you believe that Miss Rosenberg?" Very formally and almost coldly from the manner in which the question was asked.

Willow watched as Joyce traded the soiled towels for fresh ones and took the bowl of water they had been using to clean themselves with. "She didn't have to tell us. About Immortals. Faith either could have left, or even better, her "twin sister" could have shown up out of the blue one day. There would have been questions, but it would be easier than this. That's just one of the options, one of the choices she made that got Oz killed."

"Whoa, back it up Will," Xander interrupted her tirade.

"Whose to say that the CIA, or whoever is behind this, was actually watching Buffy enough that they knew she had told us about Immortals? And even if they were, everything says they targeted us, not Buffy, and not where she could easily find us. Cordelia was killed in the school parking lot for crying out loud!! Oz's van was rigged to explode. Not Buffy's motorcycle, not Joyce's Jeep, not even, if she had one, Faith's car. Even Giles is safe! We, **we** were the ones targeted Willow! They would have killed us whether Buffy told us about Immortals or not. Even when she told us about this Nightwatch thing, she only told us enough that wouldn't get us killed. Not who was in it, not it's first mission, not that . . ."

"THAT WE'RE IT!!" Willow shouted at him. "WE'RE NIGHTWATCH XANDER! Not just Faith and Joyce, not just her, or even just Angel. ALL OF US!! BECAUSE GUESS WHAT XANDER! WE'RE ALL IMMORTAL!!!!"

Xander didn't have anything to say to that as Willow sat back down with a huff of frustration.

Faith, however, was not calling that the end of it, and stomped around the table until she could look the redhead in the eye from across it. "So you're blaming me for Oz's death?" she demanded.

"What? No!" Willow blurted. "I blame _Buffy_..."

"SHE'S NOT THE ONE THAT GOT HERSELF KILLED, TAKING A KNIFE FOR **YOU**!!" Faith exploded in Willow's face. "I GOT MYSELF KILLED, AND CONTRARY TO YOUR LITTLE COMIC BOOK WORLD NAIVETY, I COULD NOT HAVE JUST COME BACK CLAIMING TO BE MY OWN TWIN SISTER. First off there's the Slayer shit, second off, we're on a fucking time table here Red. Not the Nightwatch shit, but some idiotic used-to-be pre-immortal wants to become a full-fledged demon black mage! In a few months time, he's going to get his wish, and if we aren't ready, Sunnyhell is gonna be a lot more hell than sunny."

Faith had finally calmed down, enough that she wasn't shouting anymore, but she continued, "I'm the one that started this whole thing rolling. Telling you guys about immortals, hell, even inviting John to Sunnydale, that all happened because I made a mistake. Oz's death . . ." Faith stopped talking as she took a deep breath, looking down at her fists before continuing, "Oz's death is not my fault. No more than it's B's. If we never told you about immortals, if Amy had never invited her "Uncle" here for a visit, if the Watchers hadn't even shown up . . . these people still would have, and they may have done it differently, but everyone still would have died tonight. Even Oz."

"You don't know that..." Willow snapped.

"Yes, we do," Buffy interrupted her, coming back into the kitchen. She had the folder that John had left for them in her hand. "Everything that Faith just mentioned, those were the good things that happened. It all allowed us to be better prepared for this moment."

"What moment?" Willow hatefully scorned.

Buffy put the folder down in front of the healing redhead. "The activation orders were given two months ago. The reason it took them so long to take it to this level was probably a number of factors, the least of which would have been funding for the operation, recruitment, they probably even just followed us around town, monitoring our activities for weeks before deciding on how to activate Nightwatch." Buffy pointed to one paragraph on the page right in front of Willow. "Any civilian targets in contact with targets are to be canceled immediately," she quoted. "If John had gotten to me just a few weeks earlier I might have been able to pick up on them watching us. As it turned out... they moved before I could find them out. They've probably bugged the house, which is why they moved tonight, after supper. We don't have time to sweep for them anyway. We have to be prepared and it's going to happen a lot sooner than I wanted."

"What are you talking about B?" Faith asked.

"We've known they were pre-immortal since we met them Faith," Buffy snapped. "Joy and I set up basically an Immortal boot camp not too far out of town. We'll be heading out there in the morning. According to procedure, the activation team should leave town after confirming that Nightwatch has been activated. And if the house really is bugged, then they just got it."

"And if this activation team doesn't follow procedure?" Xander asked, tension in his posture and voice.

Buffy didn't verbally answer him, but the look she gave each of them was enough.

"When do we leave?" Willow asked.

"In the morning," Buffy answered immediately.

"Well good, because it's been a long enough night as it is," Joyce announced as she came in carrying blankets and a couple of pillows. "Now, we know Giles is safe, otherwise they would have taken care of him along with Cordelia in the school parking lot."

"Gee, thanks," Cordelia bit out sarcasm as she accepted a blanket and a pillow from the older Immortal.

"So, Xander, you get the couch. Willow, Cordelia, I'm afraid you'll have to share the guest room. And I trust you two will keep your same sleeping habits?" Joyce asked with a disapproving motherly tone, causing all the other people in the house to look suspiciously at both Immortal Slayers.

"No, I'm gonna stay up and get things ready. Faith, you, since you've just had a major healing and I need you at the top of your game for the next few days, you go on up and get some sleep. That's an order," Buffy added when Faith looked about to argue.

Scowling, the Dark Slayer turned and slowly marched up the stairs, grumbling the whole way, "Stupid old bitch, having her stupid covert ops team five stupid minutes and she's already giving stupid orders . . ."

Those remaining struggled to keep their faces straight, except Buffy of course, who just had an understanding smirk on hers. "All right, everyone to bed. We all need to . . . to . . . be . . ." she would have continued but suddenly she seemed to lose all her balance and stumbled a bit before suddenly collapsing forward, fainting dead away.

"BUFFY!" every Immortal in the home cried out in panic, Faith racing back down the stairs even as Willow and Joyce immediately picked the blonde up from the floor and with Xander and Faith's help put her down on the couch in the living room.

"What just happened?" Faith screamed.

"I don't know!" Willow began to panic, "One second she was talking and taking charge like normal and then she started to look real faint and then her speech faltered and I think she fainted but Buffy doesn't faint so that means she collapsed from something, what if she's dying from some unknown disease that only Immortals get or when we get to a certain age we just stop and die and..." SLAP!

Everything stopped for a second, and then Joyce returned to looking Buffy over. Willow's head was still turned, and her cheek still red from where the Summers Matriarch had slapped her, but she was no longer panicking and running off at the mouth.

"I'm sorry I had to do that Willow, but now is not the time for hysterics," Joyce said as she continued to look Buffy over.

"Come on Red," Faith picked Willow up and dragged her into the kitchen before anything else happened.

Once they were gone, Xander took Willow's place beside the two Summers women and asked, "OK, without the hysterics, do you know what's wrong with Buffy? Because Buffy doesn't faint unless she means too or she's on emotion overload. So . . . what's wrong?"

"I don't . . ." Joyce stopped and took a deep breath and then let it out very slowly, "I'm not sure Xander, but for right now..." she stopped suddenly when she saw a tiny insignificant mark on her daughter's arm. She closed her eyes tightly and cursed, "Oh Goddess, not _now_!"

"What? What is it?" Xander insisted.

"The serum," Joyce said simply as she started to pick Buffy up.

Xander, seeing what she was trying to do, helped her, taking the other side of the blonde. "What serum?" he asked.

Joyce looked at him, and then seemed to realize something and let out another long sigh. "Never mind right now, I'll explain later. But for right now lets just get her to the couch."

When Buffy finally came too, she already knew what had happened because she could feel it, throughout her entire body. The serum was more than a combination of multiple varieties of sedatives and muscle-relaxant drugs. It was also mystical, empowered with enough magic to physically weaken a Slayer for days if not weeks, given in enough quantities. For an Immortal, gifted with Slayer powers by the gods themselves, it would be a minimum of 24 hours. 12 hours for the serum to take full effect, and then 24 to 72 after that for the effects to be fully extinguished.

Buffy felt weak, weaker than she had in years. When she moved, it felt like she was straining to move at all, like gravity itself was strong enough to crush her in a single moment, and when she could move, it felt like she was crawling, her movements were so slow.

"Hey Buff," a familiar voice said right beside her, "how ya feelin'?"

She looked around to find herself on the couch, Xander and Joyce sitting across from her.

With a groan she slid herself into a sitting position and then almost collapsed back into the couch. The full serum was enough to kill a mortal Slayer, but it was also the only way an Immortal Slayer could be affected at all. But it still kicked like a burly mule in heat.

"Weak. Damn the Watchers. It's going to be at least an hour before I get even a fraction of strength back. Good thing I'm Immortal, otherwise my heart would have stopped." Buffy answered him.

"Uh, dear, your heart did stop," Joyce explained.

"Yeah, which is why it's a good thing I'm Immortal. My heart doesn't stay stopped. This doesn't change anything. Everybody get some sleep. We're still leaving in the morning and I'll take care of the Watchers tonight. Uh, after I can actually move that is."

"Hey, I thought we were supposed to be a team here Buff!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"We are," she emphasized. "But the rest of you aren't ready, even for dealing with the vamp the Watchers have created for this damned test. You will be. We, Faith, Joy, and I, will make sure of that. But right now, you just need to get some rest and then go with the others in the morning. I'll catch up."

"Buffy," Joyce suddenly interrupted, "You do realize that there is a faster way of getting the serum out of your system, don't you?"

"I'd be out for _hours_ Joy," the blonde protested. "Not to mention when I actually went after the Watchers, they'd know something was up, and if Travers never managed to convince anyone else that I was an Immortal, then they'll think that Giles never gave me the serum. And you know what that'll mean."

"What?" Xander asked, clueless.

"He'll get fired. And that's not something we can afford at this time," Buffy answered him.

"Buff, I really don't think you should be going out alone, especially if . . ." Xander started to object.

"Hey," she said comfortingly, "I may be lacking in the Slayer strength department, but I'm still a 4000 year old Immortal. Believe me when I say that all this, with the exception of the CIA hit squad, this is all just par for the course. Now both of you, go get some sleep. You're going to need it for tomorrow. Really Xander, I'm fine. Now go!"

"All right, all right. I got the couch in case you forgot though, so, unless you'd like to join me," he waggled his eyes suggestively.

She just smirked and replied easily, "Oh Xander, I would never do anything like that with you, you should know that."

He just grinned self-reproachingly and nodded, and then she continued.

"And certainly not behind Cordy's back. Besides, if anything were going to happen, I wouldn't do a thing unless Cordy were there too," with that she got up off the couch and hobbled into the dining room, her muscles screaming with unnatural strain.

Xander was left sputtering in the living room, his face very red and his eyes wide in either fright or shock. Maybe both.

He looked over at Joyce, who just giggled at the look on his face and answered his unasked question, "Get used to it Xander. Now that you're a part of the club, so to speak, you're going to get to know the _real_ Buffy." With that, giggling her immortal head off, the mother figure went up the stairs leaving the young Immortal alone to sleep on his own. That is if he could ever get any sleep at all after such a blatant innuendo from his new Teacher.


End file.
